TMA 457 Final Digital Media Performance

Artist/Educator Statement

Outsiders

How would I describe myself? Independent, above anything else.  I’m confident in who I am.  I’m okay with being different from them. I chose to be who I am. And, for some, we can find happiness accepting this outsider position.

This exploration of identity formation, families and outsider perspectives has been an interesting journey.  When we first started throwing out ideas and came up with areas that we are passionate about talking about and exploring we kind of realized that they were all parts of our identity.  All things that made up who we are.  No matter our differences or similarities in these things one thing was similar.  We all had a group of people surrounding us throughout adolescence and young adulthood as we were making these choices about who we are and what defines us.  These people influenced us in ways that made us want to be like them and in ways that made us not want to be like them.  Exploring our identity through those avenues of feeling inside or outside the community was an interesting take.  I personally discovered that many of the decisions that motivated great change in my life were when I was presented with different groups of people that I could allow to influence my life.  Many times, I was part of one, but upon the discovery of the other I found that their values and priorities matched my own, and upon disassociating with one and gaining acceptance in the other marked a shift in my personality and identity.  They were large turning points in my development and still occur to me this day.

In addition to personal discoveries I learned a great deal about the members of my group.  In sharing stories about us and others close to us I learned about their opinions and views about present society and culture, about how they were brought up, and about what is important to them.  I didn’t know them all very well at the beginning of this class, but I feel like I know them so much better.  It was a great learning moment for me to figure out in a small way how to really get to know someone and appreciate them for who they are.  I grew to respect my team members so much and enjoy their company.  I wonder what would happen if similar exercises in group story telling and devising were used in other classes.  I would certainly enjoy it.

I learned a great deal about media and performance through this assignment as well.  Having the constraints of the sound, body, media, and story created those layers that influenced the experience and made the performance so much more valuable and relevant.  The devising work was short but structured fairly well that I could keep up and still feel like I improved as an artist and theatre maker.  In future classrooms I would want to do this kind of activity and performance, although I would alter it slightly.  Exploring all the layers of performance that will be included like body, sound, story, media, and visual would be something that I would do first and prior to explorations into subjects or themes that the students want to explore through a performance.  I think that having that background knowledge and skills in the different layers they know we are going to add and having a rough idea of how they are supposed to work together would influence their early work, especially the script.  Having that foundational step really bolstered by their previous knowledge would really springboard them into the devising process and help them in their work.  Other constraints that I think would work for this assignment would be a chosen theme or subject for them to base their explorations around, perhaps setting it up that students would explore some subject they were passionate about as it relates to student life or something like that.  I think these things would really enhance this activity for high school students.

I feel like I contributed a lot to this project.  I was active in discussions early on about what we should explore.  I shared my story and my interviewees and help form the question and basic outline of what we knew we wanted to do.  I did a lot of cutting and rearranging of our script.  I helped create the idea of dressing up someone to represent identity and oppression.  I created all of the videos on the side computers, brought a lot of clothes and helped in much of the preparation and rehearsal times.  I tried to help keep things consistent and aesthetic in regards to the videos, costumes, and physical performance as we were discussing how it would go.  One thing I wish I could have done a little better was not being so much of a presence in the early discussion.  I was very excited and wanted to share my ideas and I don’t know if the other group members felt that I was being too overbearing.  About halfway through I really noticed it and made lots of efforts to dial it back and act as a discussion facilitator and have other people bring ideas instead of just my own.  I did not bad in the second half.  Overall I really enjoyed this performance and the process to get it there.

Devised Script:

Note: all recorded elements except for the intro will be playing on computer screens around the room. Audience is invited to sit and/or move anywhere throughout the room throughout the performance.

Story 1 - Video on the Front screen

“Family” moves through frozen tableaus in front of the screen.

Brenna: “I’ve never felt like I didn’t belong in my family. I always felt like I had a place and that there was room for me. As a middle child, I had a unique chance to develop good relationships between all of my siblings because there was never really an age or interest gap between us, so if you were to talk to Nick, or Jess, or Elise they’d all probably say that they are closest with me. I mean, maybe that’s not true, but I just felt like my experiences with my family have brought us all closer together. My family’s motto is ‘we can do hard things’, and I just think that because of the hard things we’ve done together that we are all closer because of it.”

Jonny: “I mean, there are things that I do that my family’s always done.  There are habits that I have now because of my family.”

Story 2. Some elements recorded.  Yael Naim song starts playing in the background.

Sierra moves center, the rest move from their tableau to a corner of the room, moving differently so as to cue the audience in that they are not clearly defined as as family member anymore.  In each corner is a basket of clothes with a color coordinating to what color the person in that corner is wearing. Throughout the spoken lines, each person moves and dresses Sierra according to their wishes, or to what they think might look best. Sierra might be shocked, but she allows this to happen.  When a line from the computer plays, the actors all turn to notice this to cue in the audience as to were to look.

Kate: My family’s always been kind of an in person family.  My Dad’s never owned a phone, never plans to own one. My mom only got her phone about 4 years ago.  None of the kids had a phone until we hit college. So, first off there wasn’t a whole lot of ways to communicate with each other, but until we all started leaving the house there wasn’t much reason to.

Kiersten, recorded: Well I mean, your family is, at least my family has been so much of who I am all growing up. Being part of a big family I think also really helps with that because that’s something that is really quickly an identifier for me is that I am from a big family, I have lots of siblings.

Brenna: We still haven’t moved on from that way.  When we’re with each other we are very involved with talking to each other, playing games with each other, being with each other.  But, when we’re not with each other, there’s nothing. We have a family group chat but it’s really only administrative stuff. When are we going to meet next.  

Kiersten, recorded: Recently in the last few years as I’ve transitioned into college and moved away from home, um it’s been interesting to see the change um in identifying myself as part of the family but also not part of the family anymore.

Emily: You see, my family values one thing above everything else.  Self-reliance. We have savings, a year food supply, enough cars for each kid at home to have one.  My parents have done every possible thing to make sure we don’t have to ask for help or rely on other people.  All the lessons of great importance in my childhood were self-reliance. How to cook, clean, shop, take care of finances, my parents covered it all. I haven’t really had to rely on someone for a long time.  

Kenzie, recorded: “We used to go on family bike rides all the time. But then my brother was born and he has a lot of severe disabilities so like that kind of changed our family dynamic. And around that same time my dad started working at a prison. And that changed a lot of his... personality… So he seems a lot like kind detached I think sometimes when he gets home.”

Daniel: Doesn’t sound so bad until I realized that because I never relied on my parents emotionally, I kind of don’t know how to do that now. I don’t know how to share things about myself. Ha you know, the real things. I’ve found that no matter how close a relationship I have with someone there’s always a distance, a certain level they can never get to because of how I was taught.  I don’t think I can say that there’s one single person that knows the real me. And that includes my family. Ha one thing my parents never anticipated is that one of the byproducts of teaching me to be so self-reliant would be a time when I no longer needed them. I haven’t spoken to them in 3 months.

Kate, recorded: “I didn’t feel like we were in a place where we cared about each other the way I wanted us to…  And I just remember thinking to myself, like, that … that I have to change, that I can’t be the one being acted upon and that I need to be um, I need to… to… um… to choose who I want to be.  And I feel like in that moment I chose to really believe and trust in God and that the fact that he could heal me and my family and I chose to believe in myself and who I am …”

Story 3 (outsider) - All elements are recorded.  Jack White song playing.

The dressing of Sierra has become more intense.  Sierra starts to resist. Other actors may be fighting against each other to keep what they have done.

Emily: “I guess the biggest thing that like has stayed with me, umm, is just the fact that like what you feel and what is actually happening is not always the same. Like, there’s like, my reality versus reality. And like my reality does not make reality any different but it doesn’t change the fact that my reality is still how I’m feeling. So just cuz it may not be accurate it doesn’t make it any less valid if that’s what I’m feeling. And so I’ve just kind of always tried to remember that, like, to validate my own feelings when I like come to a hard point or when I feel lonely or sad, like, realize, like,  ‘Ok, like, it may not be what is actually happening but it’s what I’m feeling so it’s happening to me.’”

Kenzie: “Mostly when I got home from my mission. And I feel, like, there’s, like, obviously there’s a logical explanation for that. Their life went on as it was for the year and a half I was gone. And my life changed in the year and a half I was gone cuz I was in a new place with new people all alone, like, in the context that I didn’t have anyone familiar. And so I got used to being myself and being independent and I had like this new identity that I then came home and I was just like “I don’t know who you are and I don’t know who I am anymore, with you” because everything had changed so much… I just kind of felt, like, “I don’t know you”.”

Emily: “My family really created a strong part of my identity, but kind of, not all the time, I’m with my family because of what they told me. Sometimes I go against, because of what my family told me.”

Kenzie:  “What is right, what is wrong but it kind of ties in to this bigger moral thing, understanding why you don’t do something.”

Emily: ”I always kind of fought my parents on things whenever they’re like ‘Oh, no, no, no, you can’t go by yourself, you can’t stay out late, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t.’”

Sierra: Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill, but this is something that has been on my mind these past few years.

BYU and the church culture places such importance on marriage and relationships, it may seem that those who are not in a relationship are the minority. Statistically, only around half of all BYU graduates got married before graduating. That certainly doesn’t make the rest of us outsiders.

Kate: “I felt like, um, I felt like I always, like I had to be, like I couldn’t ever have things go wrong in my own life because, like, things were already going wrong and that like, like that I didn’t have the time for that. I had to be keeping things together, that I had to be doing everything perfectly.”

Hannah: “I guess in high school, like, because my best friend growing up started going to band and marching band, um, I kinda felt obligated to be with her friends, so a lot of the times they would all kinda go into band geek mode (laughs) and I just kinda sat there and smiled and was like “that’s nice, guys!”.

ENDING - spoken lines, no recorded elements

Sierra breaks out of the madness.  Sierra picks and chooses what she will wear, returning any disliked items to those that gave them to her.  The other actors, when they speak do the same and come to stand by Sierra in the center.

Sierra: Often as we explore relationships (or lack thereof), we ostracize ourselves believing that we are the only one who is an outsider. However, those who seem like they are insiders are not always certain of their status either. If you feel like an outsider because of relationship status, sexuality, or unhappiness, remember that we are all outsiders posing as insiders.

Kate: I was able to say you know like you know they’re, haha, they’re complicated, but I’m like I’m moving forward and I’m like, its um, those experiences that I’ve had, have shaped me into who I want to be. And are helping me to recognize that, like, life and the experiences that we have they’re a continuous journey, and that we continue to change.

Daniel: Junior year, I was like, I’m gonna be my own person. It was like a self segregation where, like, I’m an art kid so I’m going to go eat in the art room.

Brenna: My relationship status both does and doesn't define who I am. I enjoy being single because I feel that devoting myself to someone else makes me lose my personal identity and that terrifies me. Eventually, I will find a partner.

Emily: But for these past years, I have enjoyed maneuvering the adult life transition and finding my persona. Relationships don’t have to define us, but I have chosen to allow it to define me because being single makes me feel independant and knowing that I don’t have to rely on someone else helps me discover characteristics about myself.

Daniel: How would I describe myself? Independent, above anything else.

Emily: I’m confident in who I am.

Brenna: I’m okay with being different from them.

Kate: I chose to be who I am.

Sierra: And, for some, we can find happiness accepting this outsider position.

Soundscape

Yael Naim New Soul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XgEfYGzojcA

Jack White, Servings and Portions:  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QClzlZTXj4Y