Did I wake up the city?

How did I activate my enquiry?

Did I wake up the city?

Waking up the Sleepwalking City

My question and my practice.

The work incorporated various forms of improvisational scores, which enabled the dancers to move through the space in response to their sensory relationship the surroundings; inviting the spectator or passers-by to make decisions about their journey, in turn, potentially transforming the space into a place for them as they view the site differently.

The title emerged after reading Walter Benjamin’s (1985) discussions around how the beauty of the past has been reproduced into a commodity within the city, leaving the ‘urbans' (city inhabitants) to live in a dream world. Due misplaced and reproduced desires and dreams through advertising, the ‘urbans’ are unable to create a connection to the city rendering it a space where their decisions and relationships to the surroundings are predetermined and their dreams oppressed.

To me, the concept of the sleepwalk was the idea that the ‘urbans’ are machines that follow a strict status quo, which decides our desires, but also the way we walk around the city, and subsequently, the way we view the city. So, for me this work was about altering this view of the city and an attempt to break away from the status quo, and invite my spectators and passersby to also breakaway. Potentially, turning the space outside Tate Modern, into a place, whereby each person would build an individual connection to, rather seeing the area as a pathway to another space.

I performed the work at 4 times different times:

The evening/weekend rush hour: 18.45 Friday 22^nd June 

The weekend: 14.30 Sunday 24^th June

The weekday night time: 21.30 Monday 25^th June

The weekday morning rush hour: 08.45 Wednesday 27^th June

The reasoning for the various times was that I wanted to present my work to different crowds and also see how the reactions of the passers-by vary at different times of a working week.

Now, how do I measure the successfulness of ‘Waking up the Sleepwalking City’?

How did I want people to ‘wake up’?

The work was an experiment; therefore, I did not want to expect any particular responses. However, the piece invited the audience to take new routes around the space, see structures an architecture differently, notice things in the surrounding skyline they either have never noticed or previously ignored. Therefore, I was more interested to see whether the spectators, and more importantly, the passersby responded to these invites and if so, how they chose to respond... This linked to the performances being at different times within the week, as I was intrigued to see how willing people were to interact when they were going to and from work...

Now measuring this response, I did not want to ask questions as I was aware of the performativity of this, especially if they are approached by the creator of the piece. Therefore, during the pieces I chose to watch, take photos and record conversations during the performance. However, I did also take on board some comments from spectators, colleagues and friends.

The passersby are the people my piece was originally created for, the people that walk past that space everyday and potentially ignore the beauties it has to offer all of one’s senses. Therefore, originally the spectators were more for creating a scene, to lure in the passersby, however, they may also be someone who knows this area very well and is ‘asleep’ to it, or could take this concept to somewhere they do know very well.

What I felt was successful was inviting the public to see or experience things in a new light. Especially the section under Millennium Bridge, which caused a lot of people to stop all around the site to look at it from different views, and the spectators often moved around the site to experience it further.

In conversation a few notes were “it was like an urban climbing frame, it made me wanna be a climber or do some free running” (James Booth, 2012)

“made me look at the metal structure, the colours made it stand out and I wanted to join in” (Phoebe Brown, 2012)

“it was a piece of structure that nobody usually pays attention to, and suddenly it was really a important focal point” (Sinead Krebs)

The moments when the dancers were responsive to something that all the spectators and passersby could hear during the flock, was another successful moment that saw a connection between the dancer and public. Monday night was quiet and therefore sounds were very loud, there were two prominent moments, when the St. Paul’s Cathedral struck 10pm, and when there was a piano being played. The dancers all began to improvise to those sounds, prompting the spectators and passersby to stop, laugh and see this connection to sound.

The flocking itself took on different terrains as the dancers moved through the space, and the spectators mostly, but also the passersby followed, taking individual angles on the event, being an individual within a collective.

The moment when the dancers guided the spectators to the bridge was another successful moment as they interrupted their movements and invited them to look at specific sights, it was obvious but really made people direct their gaze across something new to them. One spectator swung on a bollard after a dancer did, which showed they took the invite to experience things differently:

The moments of pause worked well to invite the spectator to have a moment to see that area in a new light.

The moments on the bench, which forced the sitting people to become part of the piece, was really exciting, as the spectators began to see that bench as something different, and experience it as something exciting.

However, there was still a mentality for the spectators to group together around the dancers, so when they separated and took an individual root, I saw a moment of understanding from them.
There were also people who completely ignored the dancers to continue on their everyday, cycling past or not even turning a head, what would I have to do to wake them up?
I felt that the moment where the dancers interacted with the public sparked a connection between them, creating an interruption in their day or their usual way of viewing. Otherwise, there were parts that were alienating and personal for the dancers, leaving the spectators to just watch them.

Questions that have arisen just from writing this:

Would longer stillness have given the spectators more of a chance to survey the area?

Are people still experiencing the view and senses differently during a performance?

Are people likely to ignore the piece because art is expected around the Tate?

However, there was a distinction between each day, showing a very different willingness of passersby on Sunday than on Wednesday morning. So, possibly, people are tired and do not want to wake up, just to have to go sit in an office all day....

DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY

There was also a desire to capture the performance through a camera, many people stopping only to take a picture, many people following the piece behind the lens of a camera. Is this something that cannot be ignored? Should I take this a compliment that people want to archive my performance as part of their day? Or should I take this as a failure as people did not experience the piece through their body but through a camera?

So I seem to have created more questions than answers, however, what I have is a lot of data, a lot of information to help me understand what happened outside the Tate Modern during 22-27^th June 2012.

M.J.B