Our original concept was an immersion-based experience in the room off the Cosker suite, utilising the unique layout of the room to create a more believable environment. Our piece was centred on immersing the audience in this war-time environment and introducing them to three VC winning soldiers who had ties to Lincoln and the Drill Hall. The design for the room was set to be a trench, of sorts, with a table and lamp to the back of the room to draw the audience in to the trench. Posters and newspaper articles from the war era were going to be hung around the room to deliver information and context to the audience members.
Owing to shortcomings in our idea to re-create a trench we have pursued a different type of performance in the hope of better utilising the space available to us. We have chosen to develop a performance based on lost and found items, memories and emotions. We have decided these performances shall be one to one, so our group of three will have the same room, with the same overall contents, but will base their performance around the items that suit their performance. Owing to the Drill Hall’s past as a concert venue a potential avenue I am looking to explore would be to include music in my one to one performances, playing songs that were once played live on an old guitar to bring the history of the Drill Hall to life.
The new performance model unfortunately didn’t allow us to extrapolate much relevant research information from our previous idea owing to the fact that it was mainly Military based research on a few individuals, however the names and stories of these people are still relevant to the history of the Drill Hall, and as such could potentially have left an object that could tie in to our performance.
Although our piece has changed drastically I do not personally feel that we have taken any steps backwards, we already have ideas for room design, stories to incorporate, and how we intend to present our performance overall.