As i began discussing in the last post, i wanted to look back at my protest in greater detail, looking at what went right and what went wrong.
Firstly i feel that i should talk about my own perspective on the overall protest,
i feel it went well, it wasn't great by any means but i can't help but wonder if my message was conveyed, but i managed to sing the songs correctly.
I feel that even though the mask had been adjusted it actually was a hindrance when trying to project my voice, especially in a town centre where noise is reasonably loud, however i think that the ability to stand and watch myself perform was much easier on the public as they could walk around me or avoid me altogether if they so wished.
I personally felt that my adherence to health and safety was commendable as city centres to carry many risks to performers if they don't research the area and get a good idea of general pedestrian traffic and spaces available.
I felt the mask helped to enforce the idea that i was protesting but i don't think it carried the desired effect in getting people interested in my performance, i feel as if it grabbed attention but people thought i might have been a busker or street performer instead of a protester.
So things that went well were as follows:
Timing and itinerary of the protest,
the performance had actually been timed out about a week before the actual performance and that was done a number of times to see if there was a point to being in certain locations and if certain songs would work better in different locations,
i actually cut my performance down to three songs
which were:
Could You Be Loved?-Bob Marley
Happy-Pharell Williams
Powerful-Jussie Somelett & Alicia Keys
as specified in the post from the first of December in which i discussed looking at cutting a song because of the lack of meaning in singing at one of the locations as well as not finding a song i felt was acceptable.
Contrast between my singing and the power of the Guy Fawkes mask
the mask which is often seen as a symbol or rebellion and chaos was employed in a peaceful and non-aggressive way which leads to a series of new questions how masks can affect protest.
And then I'd like to cover what could have gone better or just not been done at all
The Mask and vocal projection:
The mask i used for the performance was a thin plastic version of the Guy Fawkes mask, i did this in order to adjust it if i felt i couldn't sing as well as helping with air and breathing, personally I seemed to be fine until midway though could you be loved where the air in the mask became hot and instead of my breath gong out of the mouth-hole and projecting instead went into the mask creating a Dutch oven sort of effect where i got hotter and hotter as time went on, this was alleviated slightly when i moved between locations but it was extremely unpleasant
While i'd adjusted the mouth-hole to account for that i obviously didn't do enough on that front, my vocal projection was also weakened by the mask, so if i were to do the protest again i feel either a more modified mask would need to be used or no mask at all.
The area in the spaces:
i think i was correct in my use of the space however in the feedback I received about my protest it was felt that my use of the space was not well thought out, there wasn't any choreography in my piece to keep passers-by interested in what i was doing which contrasted some of the other performance space use from other groups, some interacted with the public or were very personal but mine didn't seem to want to interact with the audience or rather it simply did it's own thing and the audience could join in.
Lack of promotion
I think one of the major things that might be questioned is my lack of promotion of the protest, you know letting people know when and where i would be doing the protest, besides the lecturers and a few fellow students who were in the group, i wanted to focus on sudden-impact surprise protest, as opposed to planning it with a group of people which i will look at doing if i ever do it again, but mostly i felt that if people knew then it might take away from what i wanted to achieve with the protest.
Attitude to protest:
while i obviously practised my protest behind closed doors i did put a few hours in trying to get the vocals and general protest just right, but i personally always felt that i treated it as a performance instead of a protest and that might of carried over in how i presented my protest, an actual protest focuses on being colourful and drawing attention to itself as well as using chants and even slogans, however i chose to forego this and instead tried to focus more on the power of the mask and the power of the silence when not singing, this may or may not have been a mistake.
Audience:
I think that my lack of engagement with the people of Worcester was the biggest issue with my performance and this was due to my insistence on not interacting with the public as much as possible as well as focusing on just trying to perform in the spaces as opposed to creating great moves which would draw people towards me, i think my tendency with working by myself for the performance lead to some great ideas which i refined but i feel my lack of others to test the performance on and get feedback in relation to the audience was my major downfall here.
This will conclude the second part of my reflection, in the third and last section i will summarise the protest and note what I will look at changing on my next attempt when i chose do protest again
Firstly i feel that i should talk about my own perspective on the overall protest,
i feel it went well, it wasn't great by any means but i can't help but wonder if my message was conveyed, but i managed to sing the songs correctly.
I feel that even though the mask had been adjusted it actually was a hindrance when trying to project my voice, especially in a town centre where noise is reasonably loud, however i think that the ability to stand and watch myself perform was much easier on the public as they could walk around me or avoid me altogether if they so wished.
I personally felt that my adherence to health and safety was commendable as city centres to carry many risks to performers if they don't research the area and get a good idea of general pedestrian traffic and spaces available.
I felt the mask helped to enforce the idea that i was protesting but i don't think it carried the desired effect in getting people interested in my performance, i feel as if it grabbed attention but people thought i might have been a busker or street performer instead of a protester.
So things that went well were as follows:
Timing and itinerary of the protest,
the performance had actually been timed out about a week before the actual performance and that was done a number of times to see if there was a point to being in certain locations and if certain songs would work better in different locations,
i actually cut my performance down to three songs
which were:
Could You Be Loved?-Bob Marley
Happy-Pharell Williams
Powerful-Jussie Somelett & Alicia Keys
as specified in the post from the first of December in which i discussed looking at cutting a song because of the lack of meaning in singing at one of the locations as well as not finding a song i felt was acceptable.
Contrast between my singing and the power of the Guy Fawkes mask
the mask which is often seen as a symbol or rebellion and chaos was employed in a peaceful and non-aggressive way which leads to a series of new questions how masks can affect protest.
And then I'd like to cover what could have gone better or just not been done at all
The Mask and vocal projection:
The mask i used for the performance was a thin plastic version of the Guy Fawkes mask, i did this in order to adjust it if i felt i couldn't sing as well as helping with air and breathing, personally I seemed to be fine until midway though could you be loved where the air in the mask became hot and instead of my breath gong out of the mouth-hole and projecting instead went into the mask creating a Dutch oven sort of effect where i got hotter and hotter as time went on, this was alleviated slightly when i moved between locations but it was extremely unpleasant
While i'd adjusted the mouth-hole to account for that i obviously didn't do enough on that front, my vocal projection was also weakened by the mask, so if i were to do the protest again i feel either a more modified mask would need to be used or no mask at all.
The area in the spaces:
i think i was correct in my use of the space however in the feedback I received about my protest it was felt that my use of the space was not well thought out, there wasn't any choreography in my piece to keep passers-by interested in what i was doing which contrasted some of the other performance space use from other groups, some interacted with the public or were very personal but mine didn't seem to want to interact with the audience or rather it simply did it's own thing and the audience could join in.
Lack of promotion
I think one of the major things that might be questioned is my lack of promotion of the protest, you know letting people know when and where i would be doing the protest, besides the lecturers and a few fellow students who were in the group, i wanted to focus on sudden-impact surprise protest, as opposed to planning it with a group of people which i will look at doing if i ever do it again, but mostly i felt that if people knew then it might take away from what i wanted to achieve with the protest.
Attitude to protest:
while i obviously practised my protest behind closed doors i did put a few hours in trying to get the vocals and general protest just right, but i personally always felt that i treated it as a performance instead of a protest and that might of carried over in how i presented my protest, an actual protest focuses on being colourful and drawing attention to itself as well as using chants and even slogans, however i chose to forego this and instead tried to focus more on the power of the mask and the power of the silence when not singing, this may or may not have been a mistake.
Audience:
I think that my lack of engagement with the people of Worcester was the biggest issue with my performance and this was due to my insistence on not interacting with the public as much as possible as well as focusing on just trying to perform in the spaces as opposed to creating great moves which would draw people towards me, i think my tendency with working by myself for the performance lead to some great ideas which i refined but i feel my lack of others to test the performance on and get feedback in relation to the audience was my major downfall here.
This will conclude the second part of my reflection, in the third and last section i will summarise the protest and note what I will look at changing on my next attempt when i chose do protest again
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