Category: 5 Minute Performance Presentations

Every person has an obsession, everybody in some way of another wants to know things about people,  strangers, friends or family. I wanted to create a five minute solo performance on this.The idea of speed dating and the little time you have to get to know someone to decide whether you like someone or not sparked the idea of questions and the desire to find out as much as i can about one person as i could. I wanted to question the relationship between performer and spectator. Presenting a performance like this questions the relationship as the spectator could be the performer as much as the performer itself as they are both in the performance.  Also, Tim Etchells Forced Entertainment performance  ‘Quizoola!’ influenced the 5 minute performance i performed in week 2.

Forced Entertainment – Quizoola5 Minute Egg TimerForced Entertainment’s ‘Quizoola!’ focuses on random questions, trivial questions, pub quiz questions and having the performers with clown faces to create a theatrical element to it. However, i wanted to be myself asking questions, not taking on a persona, just being myself and explore if a audience member can open up to me by answering the questions. I want use personal questions, to see if i can really push the audience to see how far they could go. I created a list of questions ranging in personal levels, adding to the performance i created a sense of time by adding a five minute egg timer sound effect.  I wanted to see how much i could find out from one person. I chose a fellow student Chris Greenhall, whom i don’t really know that well. During the performance Chris managed to answer all the questions on the list before the time run out. As a result of this i moved on to another student James Barker. However, due to the lack of time didn’t manage to ask all the questions.

The problem with this performance is that not every audience member will comfortably answer questions about their personal life. For example, ‘How many people have you slept with?’ or ‘Who was the last person you kissed?’. As Chris and James where fellow drama students who are fairly open about their life, managed to answer the questions put to them. Another problem is development, how can i develop this enough for a 20 minute performance?

I would need to develop the questions and get some form of composition into the performance. The questions are the main aspect of the performance and would really need some thought. A few ideas developed while thinking about this performance;

Speed Dating set up:

 

I wanted to set the studio space up  with tables and chairs, the same set up you will find when going speed dating. Having the egg timer playing in the background and also having a list of questions on each table. Sitting the audience members at a table with an empty seat opposite them. I would go to each table and find out as much as i can about them, increasing the level of personal as far as i could until they don’t want to answer.

 

Work Cited:

BLUEBELLINVENTIONS (2010) 5 minutes egg timer [online video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_udhlzdJZ0 [Accessed 19 February 2014].

Forced Entertainment (2010) Quizoola! [online video] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGOr-DrXieU [Accessed 19 February 2014].