This module wasn’t one that I was completely looking forward to I will admit. As I didn’t have a full understanding of what ‘site specific performance’ was, but after the Mike Pearson reading and the introduction to Site from Rachel; who is obviously passionate and experienced in the topic gave me confidence it would not be as bad as I had first anticipated.

In the introduction of Mike Pearson’s book Site Specific Performance, he describes and outlies what Site Specific Performance is and how many practitioners have different approaches and methods of practicing Site Specify Performance. Pearson uses Fiona Wilkes’ words here to show how non-theatre venues provide “an enquiry into what theatre is and might be” It also incorporates ‘a set of productive special metaphors, whereby practitioners use their focus on geographical space to explore a range of theoretical conceptual, political and virtual spaces” (Pearson, 2010, pg. 9)

I thought that this quote was relevant to the task we were given in the workshop, which was to create a subtle mob which we as a group were to perform but were also given individual tasks to follow. I found that the task reflected the idea of geographical space in relation to a theatrical space, which is interesting as at the top of the sheet we were given was the geographical location in full alongside the co-ordinates of the space outside the LPAC, Library and The Engine Shed. We then used this specific location to create our subtle mob. The idea of having a very specific location down to the geographical co-ordinates of say a five by five meter space is interesting to me, as it is so exact and confined yet it could be out in a large open space. So the idea of playing around with an extremely specific space is appealing to me and I am now really looking forward to our next workshop up at Castle Square.

Pearson, M (2010) Introduction in Site Specific Performance. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan