Category: ICP

After getting over the shock of the 9am start, and following the assorted talks in the Stevenson Hall, Rosie and I discussed how best to use our day, as this would be our last time with our group. It was decided that I would spend all day in the venue, rigging with Kayrin – our Technical Supervisor – and she would spend time in rehearsals, feeding back to me information I would need, like focus points or the location of specials. With this in mind I went and collected my LED order from AV. However, I soon realised that – due to lack of flight cases – these t-bars would have to be stationary. To address this, I decided to place them on either side of the venue, pointing centre stage, in order to give side lighting and creating an in-the-round rig for the square performance space. Then, if it turned our that action needed to be highlighted we could utilise overhead spots of the movers on the rig to do so.

The rig took a shorter amount of time than I thought it would and, after showing Kayrin how to work the Juggler desk, I took to writing up additional risk assessments, to add to the one for the fit-up. Once these had been completed, and following an agreement with the other Technical Supervisors that we would all put up a generic rig at 2pm, I stuck my head into rehearsals . By doing so, the action that was taking place allowed me to compile a rough focus plot, with group members throwing out ideas for spot positions, in order to create dramatic moments. I found it empowering to see other group members taking an interest in the technical production aspect of the piece, as it can so often seem to be sidelined for just Production students to do.

In the afternoon I met with the other Technical Supervisors – two of whom were from PTM – and they outlined what they wanted. The biggest rig came from Fergus’ group, so it was concluded that we would create that one in the space, then pick elements of it or all the other groups to use. Fergus had been inspired by a Bridge Week show I had happened to be Technical Stage Manager on, so I was able to advise on how that design could best be adapted to this space. So, with kit list in hand, myself and Callum – another Production student – sourced what we needed from the dock and transported it to the venue. As my interest lies in stage teching, I took to assembling the scaff poles into booms with the assistance of other Technical Supervisors, whilst Callum took to plugging up and patching the lamps we hung on them. This system of work resulted in a quick and clean rig, and – following a focus session with Kev’s big pokey stick – the Stevenson was ready for performance. Following one more visit to my group to check for any last minute changes, and aware of the fact that they were likely to use little of what I had left them in final performance – such was the pace with which they were altering things during rehearsals, I handed my plans over and bowed out, safe in the knowledge that – if nothing else – at least the paperwork would be in order.

In conclusion, ICP has been an interesting experience for me. Having been initially reluctant to throw myself into the process it has shown me the benefits of doing just that – feeling proud of a piece you have had a hand in creating. And, unlike Bridge Week, it teaches you how to deal with people who maybe would rather be doing something else, and get their best contributions out. It has also shown my shortcomings in my ability to manage and work as part of a group – talents that I will continue to work on and, I’m sure, get better at. Though not without its low points, I’d say it has proved an overall beneficial experience.

P.S.

Upon arriving in Edinburgh for ‘Chess’, I had assumed my ICP responsibility would be at an end. However, on the Wednesday night, I noticed something which concerned me on our group chat – talk of performers being barefoot on stage. I immediately started asking questions, of course, and drafted up the appropriate risk assessment. This proved to me the importance of communication, and highlighted a lack of understanding within the group about the practicalities behind executing ideas, like having to have hazards like this risk assessed. For, had an assessment not been carried out, I would not have been in the good books of the production manager should something have gone awry.

With the performance week fast approaching, and the previous session ended without making as much progress as we should have, I made the conscious decision to take a back seat on devising conversations this week and, instead, focus on the ground plans, LX plots, and risk assessments that I needed to compile. These would need to be completed to a good enough standard that they could be left with our Technical Supervisor after I had rigged them, which made it infuriating when I found that the list of equipment we were to be given was not yet published, and the only technical drawing of the venue I could access was a basic pdf ground plan. However, as the team began to talk about the idea of snapshotting action, focusing on small parts of a bigger scene during the performance, I began to think of how I could best light this in a way that would still be relatively easy to operate, but without making it as boring as a permanent wash. I devised the idea of using the LED par can sets from the AV store and ratchet strapping them to flight cases, creating roaming lights that could be moved across the stage during performance to focus on specific action. The rest of the group thought this could be a really cool idea, along with my suggestion of taping a square on the floor to give a clear, defined performance area, in what can feel like quite a wide, church-like space. With this concept in mind, I started drawing.

Working on a plan like this alongside rehearsals was very beneficial as I could start to gauge where I’d want light to be focused, adding in pars upstage for backlight and a profile and fresnel bank to light from the front. Halfway through the second half of the session, the Venues team sent an email to us, detailing that we would be able to utilise all of the lamps and desks available in our venues. This was liberating, as it meant I could have free reign of whatever lamps I wanted, though I was careful to make sure anything I added in was still user friendly.

The session ended with a brainstorming chat, with the group pitching what they felt could be hazards arising from the performance that I would need to risk assess. It also gave me a chance to outline and explain how the risk assessment procedure could be carried out in my absence, with David volunteering to be a stand-in Stage Manager, in order to ensure all of my control measures were put in place. Overall, this week has felt incredibly productive for me, though I feel sad that I couldn’t contribute as much to the actual content of the piece as I may have wished to. However, I accept that the paperwork I wrote needed to be put to the group prior to the rig, and this was the best and easiest way to make sure that happened. We closed with a game of Ninja – just for the fun.

Week four arrived, but without many of the voices that had dominated the previous week’ rehearsal sessions. As I felt that in previous weeks our group had become distracted and lacking focus, I took this air gap as my opportunity to try and steer the group towards decisions about what our piece would actually look like. Our first session was in the Stevenson Hall, the space which would also act as our performance venue. This was an amazing opportunity as, by just being in the room, we could start to imagine and work through different ideas and suggestions, getting used to the venue’s quirks and challenges. We opened this session with a discussion – again – though this time focused on how we had contemplated on the artistic responses of the previous week. From this, we started to see themes appearing – ideas like fighting against a larger power, and how – united – the people can win against societal oppression. This linked back to the statement we had devised earlier, with the concept that we should be assisting those who cannot exercise their Human Rights to be able to do so.

One member of the group – Mindaugas – had the idea of opening with a piano playing a loud melody. We would then have another instrument play an opposing tune, but be drowned out by the piano. Slowly, however, more instruments would join the opposing melody, drowning out the piano and demonstrating how people together can conquer any oppressing force. This seemed like a brilliant idea, and it was decided that this would make a good ending for the piece. There was resistance to this within the group initially, however, with a concern that it may appear too abstract and the audience may not see the meaning in it. I noted that audiences are often smarter than people first assume them to be, and that – as we’d concluded we didn’t want to literally stage the article – abstract ideas like these would be unavoidable. This proved to satisfy those with misgivings and we proceeded.

Just as we were rattling through creative concepts with ideas of how we would split the piece up, it became apparent that a roadblock in our way was the fact that some people were still unclear as to what the article was and what we were aiming to do with it. Seeing this to be the massive issue that it was, I suggested tab we use our last ten minutes to walk around and become familiar with the space before breaking and reading the article again before the second half of the session. Following coffee, we resumed on the AGOS couches. It was there where we decided that the easiest, and fastest, way to proceed would be to split into groups, look at ways people are prevented from exercising Human Rights, think of how these ideas could be staged, and then pitch it back to the group. This way, we could split the work of the piece in three, practically tripling the amount of time we were spending working on it.

My group took education as a topic, looking to examine people’s inability to access high-quality education and why this may be. I suggested that an interesting way to stage this may be through dance, with a performer using blocks to build a tower to reach an item suspended in the air – in this case, a good education. The path to these blocks could be made challenging with things like wind hazards that they must struggle through. Then, when the tower is built, another performer would enter, walk up a ladder, and take the item for themselves. This would show the struggle and obstacles some people go through to access good education and the ease with which it is given to others. The group liked this idea, with one comment that the blocks should have pictures or words on them to make clear what the performer was striving for. With this contribution, we pitched this idea to the rest of the group. However, it became apparent that due to the task not being understood by all, the other groups had been unable to come up with performance ideas. With time running out, we ended the session without a clear concept and without an idea of what we wanted to achieve for the following week – a position I was disappointed to find us in.

What had also become apparent this week was that, despite my best efforts, I still have a way to go in honing my management style. To have other members of the group speak to me like I was a teacher due to the way I tried to steer conversation makes me feel uncomfortable, and has shown the need for me to continue to work on moving away from a more dictatorial management style to one that is more applicable to the collaborative process.

We started this week’s session by running the Buzzfeed experiment I had suggested the week prior. After lining up the group, I proceeded to read out questions, to which – if the answer was ‘yes’ – the participant should take one step forward. There ended up being a lot fewer questions than I recalled, but, even after the limited set that we had available, it was interesting to see the disparities in perceived privilege between such a small group of people. This led us to create the statement “Though everyone has the right to human rights, only some have the opportunity to exercise them”, which I found to be a really interesting concept and starting point for us to work from.

We then proceeded to share our own personal artistic responses to the article, drawing from our backgrounds to present vastly different pieces to the rest of the group. I chose to present a graphic I had found which had been created during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign by Shepard Fairey, the same artist who had designed Barack Obama’s ‘Hope’ poster in 2008. These three images showed three women – one black, one Native American, and one Muslim – each superimposed onto the American flag. I found this a really compelling statement, not only the image itself, but also due to the backlash it received from the American Right, with some labelling it ‘disgusting’ and ‘perverse’. By showing these women, covered by a universal symbol of freedom, and the hatred this received, it highlighted to me an immediate instance of how people do not have a right to freedom of expression or thought – even in the West – and so seemed a perfect response to the statement and article we had settled on.

Other contributions ranged from Opera scores to animation, and drew on a multitude of different themes – from individuality in society, to a celebration of what it means to be able to live freely. To see so many unique responses was fascinating and highlighted to me one of the benefits of the collaborative process; giving us a chance to draw from such a wide pool of artistic disciplines and backgrounds. As we dissected these responses through discussion, however, it became clear how picking such an all-encompassing article may prove to be a bigger challenge than expected, as there was no clear connection between the sections we were trying to join together. This led some in the group to suggest changing our article and starting the process over again. I was completely opposed to this, however, as I felt we did not have enough time left to be able to properly analyse and devise on a new article. I fought my case and group consensus went with the idea of sticking with Article Two. I feel that, though it may not have been where I’d wanted to end up, it had fallen to me to ensure the group stayed on track – both in relation to our time constraints and to the week-by-week plan – so as to ensure we had a finished piece by the end of the process. With this in mind, we concluded that our aim for next week would be to individually consider ways to weave our artistic responses together, feeding back at the start of the next session.

Once I had actually managed to locate our allocated rehearsal area for this week, it struck me A – how limited our space would be for the first half of the session – and B – the number of people who were missing from the group. The decision was taken, therefore, to use this half primarily for discussion, saving anything requiring movement with the hope of finding more space for after the break. Due to a lack of communication on exactly what our aim for this week had been – though I had tried my best to outline it previously – we ended up getting into the same situation as the previous week, with certain loud voices steering the direction of conversation. To combat this, I proposed splitting off into smaller groups for discussion, with the hope that this would allow more voices and inputs to be shared.

In preparation for this week I had looked at articles six and seven, examining their relevance to the Black Lives Matter movement. After sharing this idea with my group, however, it became apparent that some felt it may feel cliched, a sentiment I can sympathise with. From these discussions and the feedback session which followed – once I’d alerted everyone to our the limited amount of time we had left – an idea began to arise of examining the Declaration as a whole, and why it existed, rather than a single article. This grouping off and regrouping way of working had reaped positive results, with more people joining the conversation than had participated previously. This idea was quashed, however, by our tutor who drew our attention to the outline in the brief and the specification of focusing on one article in particular. Though I may not have agreed with this sentiment, and undue limitation, a consensus was reached that we should pick as sweeping an article as possible to give us maximum artistic freedom in our response. With this in mind, we selected to work from Article 2:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Following the break, we resumed with some more games, a component of the session now less about introductions and more about just becoming comfortable working with each other in such a close capacity. After these concluded, it was proposed that we do an exercise based on the concept of where each of us within the group stood on a wide range of social issues. Ewan led this exercise, asking questions like whether we felt fully authoritarian or anarchic, or equal or individual. I found this quite a jarring experience, as it let me examine exactly what my own beliefs and prejudices were in a way I’d never thought to before. It also reminded me of a privilege based experiment conducted by Buzzfeed, which I suggested we carry out among ourselves the following week, an idea which received a positive response. Taking our objective from the briefing pack, I made sure that everyone was clear on what had to be achieved before next week. I also took charge of noting down who would take the three production-based roles within the group, with Rosie and myself taking charge of Health and Safety, as it was where we best felt we could contribute in regards to facilitating the final performance.