GUESTS R&D Project
An introduction by Jacky Lansley
Why did I warm to Guests as a title for a project? What does it mean? What is appealing about Guests? As in the tradition of minimalist painters and performance artists we started the project by asking a few questions about what we had - this title GUESTS – before we developed anything further, and filled the ‘empty space’ at the start of the project.
Guests suggest invitation – into something – such as a process, a house, a party etc. It combines both a sense of being totally and utterly welcome while also coming from somewhere else – from the outside; crossing over and entering into something. Guests also suggest the non permanent – a guest can come and go. It also invites the question – who is doing the inviting? Guests can denote pleasure, collaboration, harmony, a good time, courtesy. However a guest is borrowed – something/somebody new, possibly unsettled – it could suggest a kind of dis-location and difference a freeing of existing components – maybe in a group, a community, a family, institution – the guest, as outsider, can make the everyday unfamiliar. Emotionally they may feel welcome or unwelcome.
This is a project concerning interdisciplinarity in which we will cross boundaries of skill, approach, craft and genres to guest in each other’s worlds. It will be about generosity, intelligence, exchange and collaboration. I am interested in cross disciplined work because it allows the power of different artistic languages and processes to ignite and fuse - particularly when new approaches/forms are required to express the inexpressible.
Dislocation – has become a strong backdrop idea in the project. Dislocation as a theme and as a tool where disparate elements are used as a strategy to consolidate a form and bind elements together into a structure that is not reliant on a narrative, a story, or familiar theatrical strategies. As in abstract processes, repetition and juxtaposition of seemingly random elements – that may be theatrical, abstract, humorous, dark etc. - are used to focus attention on key questions and issues – issues that may be too large to be held in over familiar structures.
Skills as guests; within an interdisciplinary landscape there are different skill sets, new and hybrid skills. Boundaries are blurred between – Classical Actor, Classical Dancer, Contemporary Dancer, Performance Artist, Visual Artist, Writer, Choreographer, Director, Designer, Composer, Musician, Clown etc. Do skills need particular environments, locations, relationships, ethos to develop or even exist (ballet, opera, for example)? Can we develop and exploit skills, which may be quite ‘high art’ and refined, away from the tired old institutions and codes that usually support them; postmodernism seemed to liberate performance skills from traditional contexts – raiding, borrowing, parodying classical and popular art forms – however is there a danger of this work becoming de- skilled and driven by conventional marketing? (A big subject and not the remit of this project....)
During the next phase of Guests R&D we will continue to explore these issues while developing material out of the processes we have so well established in phase 1 - this may or may not result in a performance – but it will be an interesting journey with many important and valuable outcomes for all concerned. I have already learnt and benefited enormously from the process and want to thank Angela, Brett, Tim, Ursula, Polly, Claudia, Fiona and my co-director Tim for their generosity of spirit, energy and courage, and for letting me be a guest in their worlds.
