In the throws of preparing for our interim sharing, we collectively felt there was a disjointedness in what we had prepared to show. We’ve gathered shiny moments from our process, but we were struggling to flow one into another. We then started to realise that the work didn’t reflect our own artistic identities. We had been inspired by various stimuli, choreographed movement pieces and worked tirelessly with the mirrors, but we were losing our own flair and taste for performances. A commonality between us is a love of the absurd, maximal and strange, and the piece didn’t contain these key characteristics. Morgan proposed that we try something risky, something that sets a bizarre, disjointed tone for the show from the very first moment that enables the audience to understand the atmosphere of our world. This was where the masked work emerged.

 

An old man, a panda, a neon cat and a gimp mask. Once a spotlight hit us in them, it unlocked a creepy voyeuristic world that we refer to as ‘museum’. Morgan’s journal reads: “When we were frozen in masks, the audiences found pleasure in getting up close, poking us and waving in our faces, as if we had created the illusion that we aren’t sentient. We were reduced to objects of the world.”

 

Another realisation in this same rehearsal was a difference in dramatic processing. There was tension within the group on the speed of progress, and it felt as though we weren’t reaching what we wanted to achieve each rehearsal. When we sat down to discuss this, we realised one half of the group liked to discuss, slowly walking through ideas and ask ‘why?’ in order to clarify intentions and dramatic effects, whereas another half of the group had an instinct to throw themselves into things, try it on its feet and reflect later. This tension between analytical and spontaneous was preventing us from understanding each other, it made us lose sight of productivity within each exercise because we were aiming for different paces. Once we had this realization, though, it became only a matter of asking ‘can we try it and see?’ or ‘can i check what our intention is for this exercise before we do it?’ - questions which gave both parties the clarity needed for co-operation.

 

We call these two realisations the ‘red light conversation’ because it represented a pause in our process, and a reset based on this new information.