Quicksilver Performance

I participated in six workshop sessions forming the third body of research with Lea Andersons dance and performance company The Cholmondeleys at Tate Modern, which explored public behaviourspace, artwork and function in the gallery through performance and mass movement.

In the taster session on the Turbine Hall Bridge we were introduced to walking collectively and measuring space through counting our steps, we were told to try and keep our posture quite upright and glaze ahead, walking purposefully through the space, the energy was intense, knowing the number of steps meant that we could tightly turn direction together. I loved the sense of connecting with the space through my body and the movements felt unforced so not to much like a performance.

The performance research had no fixed outcome, it was ongoing though out the gallery so there is no seated or fixed audience. The visitors were unaware as it was unannounced, visitors might catch a fleeting gimps of us and think that was odd, did I see that? Other times depending on our actions or the space our movements were more visible and visitors would look on in suspicion, follow us through the gallery, some even joining in especially when we moved fast counting our steps through the space.

There were about 20 performers overall, we split into three groups with one Cholmondeleys member as our group guide. Initially each group simultaneously created a rough sequence of behaviour in reaction to; the space, visitor’s behaviour and artwork throughout the collection displays of Level 3 Materials Gesture. Although all as individuals moving as a group we become one with out own logic, with no one in control we learnt quickly to sense each others presence and move together as a shoal of fish at times then dispersing and disappearing becoming a gallery visitor, then re-gathering and carrying on as a group. Similar to how to visitors together walk around for parts, look sparately at an artwork then come back to together to move on to another room.

Pablo Picasso Pose

Within our sequence; we observed and mimicked visitors looking poses subtly, at times playing a relay game between the group copying, someone copying a visitor. We reacted to the artwork physically either imagining there was a wire of current from the painting through to us or reacting to the painting through movement. In front of Pablo Picasso's The Studio 1955. I elongated by body trying to make myself as tall, stiff and calm as the person I saw in the bottom right (which is actually a sculpted head on a stall), holding this until someone

copied me in the relay. By shuffling back and forth in front of a painting we found our own individual comfortable position to view it from, through this I discovered artwork a had previously overlooked.

In front of Toby Ziegler’s “The Hedonistic Imperative” we imagined we were tracing the circles with a pencil on the end of our nose, this bit was so funny as our heads moved confidently in an odd jerk.

We explored extending moments of stillness; collectively pausing and looking upwards, in front of art works and architectural elements of the gallery.

Joseph Beuys "Lightning with Stag in its Glare"

Walking then stopping abruptly and looking at artwork for an extended time period from a distance, these moments were beautifully awkward and surreal, like a cattle grazing through the gallery. A group spread apart but together in a moment of stillness. By pausing long enough you passed an awkward stage into a calm appreciative still state, which we would snap out off and move on to repeat after a few steps.

We then translated the combination of sequences for each room to Level 3: Poetry and Dream, this was really interesting as we didn’t talk about what we would do but as a group moved through the gallery through our sequence choosing how to m

ove spontaneously. Some of the best moments were accidental and coincidental, as group we paused collectively spread out in room 6 with Joseph Beuys “Lightning with Stag in its Glare” for a really extended moment of time and Ragnal from The Chomleys herd the gallery assistant say “beautiful” in reaction. On the same night we were running through our sequence as the galley was closing, we had collected to lean backwards and peer over our shoulders through the doors into the next room, coincidently as the gallery assistant was closing the door. Oo beautiful.

first whirlpool practice

We experimented with all of us flocking to a space, as each group finished their sequences through Level 3 we planed to meet on the concourse to form a whirlpool of people and exit slowly down the stairs. Unaware of how long each group would take the whirlpool grew slowly, as it sped up we accidently wrapped a group of school girls which was funny, as they were squawking “What’s going on?!”

In the Turbine Hall we explored inappropriate and contrasting behaviour of visitors. Observing that visitors casually walk, talk, glance around and up, sit, take photos and generally walk diagonally across the ramp. We behaved as if we were in the gallery, peering and examining invisible artworks at eye height on the walls, walking vertically and horizontally in contrast to diagonally and adjusting our walking speed to casual cruising slow gallery pace and a fast pace. While walking in the group we used code words to change our direction and movements such as; shop, stately home, disperse, linear and backwards. If someone said “linear” we would quickly disperse like a bomb in straight lines then form back together as a group.

One night we swopped group leaders and they gave us a tour of the other groups movements instructing as “You begin by looking at this painting. You stop and walk 10 paces to the wall. You are sucked into the paint and start twitching from your shoulders down to your knees”. This was exciting as we were being told how to move though the gallery and physically interact with the artwork. Instead of a content and context guide - a physical guide not being told to do something but being told you are doing something, so you do it.