The end of the eventé
I felt happy with how my performance played out including the happy mistakes that happened along the way. I did feel a little nervous however I had rehearsed a number of times, which made me feel more in control of them during the performance. When I entered the room people seemed to watch me but keep their distance hanging to the edges of the space. As I turned around to start it seemed like everyone was so far away from me, although I used this as a way to connect with the audience. I kept asking them to ‘come closer’, ‘closer’ which they followed very cautiously. When I asked for assistance on the stage only one person put their hand up but this just added to the tension of how this partnership was going to play out. Although I had run through the piece I was always aware of the unpredictability of crowd participation. This came up then I asked people to say ‘Guttenta’ as my lovely assistant held up the name card, which the audience didn’t really follow. I saw this as an opportunity to air my disappointment with them and how they were not following my instruction, on repeating the action they responded. This interaction with the audience was a way of lightly laying down the rules of engagement. A particular high in the piece was when I asked people to throw confetti over me at the end of my dance as I lay on the floor. When the time came it felt like an age I was sitting on the floor and then each person slowly approached me, threw confetti over me. It’s as if everything had suddenly gone into slow motion and this section of the performance was out of synch. Throughout the piece there was a regular light rumble of laughter although I could feel the tension in the room. The climax of the show worked really well people were happy to take the party poppers, move closer to me and follow my final instructions. As the party poppers went off and the balloon drop failed we all stood in silence for a few minutes. Eventually I stood up, positioned my cardboard cutout and left.
