Site Specific Performance, Assignment 3

This assignment took the setup of

A highly-regarded arts organization has invited you to submit a proposal for a site-based work for an upcoming arts festival. In this proposal you are encouraged to make as many pre-production decisions as possible, from conceiving some of the major artistic elements such as movement, sound, etc., to creating a preliminary budget. What you come up with may not be a finished piece, but that is okay. The primary purpose of the assignment is to put some of the technical and practical skills learned to date into practice while expanding on the possibilities of what you could do in your selected site. As an option, you may include a short video or photographic storyboard to illustrate your proposal. 

I didn't include a storyboard, but did go through the other sections as follows (my responses are quoted below, with the questions in the body text)

Part 1: Description of Work / Artistic Approach
In the space below, paste your 300-400 word description of work from Assignment #2 with any edits and changes as required based on peer feedback you received or other creative decisions. As mentioned above, imagine this description is the first part of a genuine proposal, so you may want to tailor it to your target audience: the festival's selection committee. Be as descriptive and persuasive as you can here within the word count.

Title: Awen (A Welsh word meaning inspiration/spirit of creation type things)
Summary: The audience will gather, likely as an amorphous set of small groups, at the start of the footpath on what is a fairly busy road. Here there would be a small performance piece while the audience are stood with a slightly futuristic feel to it, heavily influenced by street dance as a style. The styling of the performers however would have to be quite extreme, as they need to be the first instance and feel of dark faery types, as they will start to 'steal' the audience along the route of the performance. There would be about 8-10 Street Dancers, who then continue on through the performance.
As soon as this first set piece is done then the audience are invited/encouraged/herded as required onto the path, the music changes to being a little more contemporary and familiar. Over the net few hundred meters the audience are ushered to a bridge. At the bridge they pause and the future faeries are joined by another group, who have less extreme costumes, but are heavily of the era of the music, and at the bridge this should have reached about the 50s/60s. At the top of the bridge the audience are encouraged to look back along the footpath, where they should see the performers doing a jive type dance, with the routing covering each of the Latin partner dances, ending with the Charleston. This would be undertaken by about 10-15 couples, but can incorporate at least half the Street Dancers. Whilst walking the performers should be interacting with the audience, providing a feeling of fun creepiness - similar to the feel of The Addams Family.
The performance then travels again, with all the performers interacting with the audience.
The next point of journey is a young wood. At this point we are joined by the dryad type faery, a contemporary dance style with only a few dancers 5 or 6, who beckon the audience and their brethren into the centre of the stone circle, around which all the different types of faery come into a bacchanalia style and end by drifting into the woods and away from the audience. The music by now should be folk music, with a similar abandoned feel to the dancing as you get at the end of a long ceilidh.

Part 2: Production/Technical Proposal
Thinking back to some of the guidelines and suggestions provided in the course to date, what are some of the production and technical decisions you need to make to bring your work to fruition? In the space below, write a 200-400 word proposal that outlines these key technical decisions and why you are going to use them. To help you, here are some questions you may need to ask yourself in developing your proposal:
What is the audience design?
What is the structure of the performance?
What time of day is your performance?
How many performers do you see in the space?
What are some of the production elements involved in your piece?
Will you be using lights, sound, costumes or other media?
Who are some of the major personnel you will be hiring or working with?
If you do not have a lot of technical requirements in your work, please give reasons why! Is the site already equipped with the production elements you need? Is your work a guerilla-style or spontaneous performance? Or do you choose not to use external lighting, sound, etc because you prefer a simple and straightforward aesthetic? Please explain your technical considerations here.

Technical Proposal

The Performance will be a promenade performance, so there is for most of it a loose audience design, which should also allow people to join it in progress, or leave if required. As such there is little formal guidance as to where the audience should be situated, although they should be gathered in the centre of the stone circle at the final point.

The community could easily be involved in performing this piece if appropriate organisations could be brought on board.

 

Location 1 - Street and Houses, Street Dance style, 8-10 dancers

For the first location, the Street Dance, the sound will be very modern, so good quality speakers and sound system will be required at this point. This is an open

Lighting would be specific, spotlights highlighting sections of the dance, they should be integrated into the performance.

Costumes for the street performers will be extreme, bright/odd colours for hair, LEDs/glowing items included in the costume so that when in the dark they become even more otherworldly.

There are various street dance groups for all ages in the community, and they could be involved as part of this.

 

Location 2 - Bridge and path under the trees, partner dances, 15 to 20 couples

At the second location, again sound is a requirement.

This section is more likely to require lighting, with a wash of light to cover the whole path. Keeping this to either a yellow or green tint should retain the natural feeling of the location.

Costumes here would still be odd, although the feel should be a little less futuristic.

There are a number of partner dance groups covering modern jive and ballroom/Latin styles who could become involved in this section.

 

Location 3 - Woods and stone circle, contemporary and all out, 5-6 for the contemporary, all dancers involved in the final section in the stone circle

Sound is likely to be the biggest requirement here, kept simple and traditional/

Lighting here should be understated, at most a couple of highly strategically placed spotlights, with any extra light needed coming from either the costumes, or from less intrusive sources such as (probably best to be fake, as this is a wood in summer) flames, small groups of coloured LEDs being held by the performers. The light is intended to be an addition and enhancement, not a core part of this production, so the choreography will need to be enough without the lighting.

The extra costumes here are for the contemporary dancers and pale green/yellow 'floaty' fabrics with long sleeves and skirts should enhance the ancient feel of the costume.

I'm leaving out the budget aspect, as this was all very much a learning attempt, and is unlikely to ever see the light of day, so that bit, which is very abstract I'll leave out.