The Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh
This painting by Van Gogh paints an almost idealistic backdrop on which to base a solo performance, it is both beautiful and horrifying at the same time. Van Gogh is rumored to have suffered all of his life with epilepsy and this proved both to be a gift and a curse, blessed with his own unique painting style he was able to portray visuals unlike any other artist today. As one of his more famous paintings I feel basing a solo performance inspired by this painting, would be an easy and a effective use of imagery. Basing it around the subject of night terrors also juxtaposes the calming and almost trance like feeling you get when looking deeply into Van Gogh’s work. I do not take exploring the subject of night terror’s lightly, however as a frequent member of this state of psychosis I feel I am apt a approaching this topic.
I want to let the audience enter into a bedroom that is situated in a stairwell, above it will be hundreds of varying in size drawings that are hanging down with different strands of red string attaching them to the ceiling, each drawn by me and with different artistic mediums. I want the stairs to be a physical representation of age and the process of change throughout life, however at this present moment I do not know if I will be able to find a stairwell that could be occupied as working performance space or if lights and sounds would be able to transferred into this performance space.
The Scream by Edvard Munch
The performance itself will also take inspiration in its varying tone from another famous painting of Edvard Munch’s The Scream which was originally inspired by a bridge near Munch’s path to work. It is rumored the depicted man is that of one of the pedestrians that would go to this bridge and willingly commit suicide from the fall. I love its striking visual style and vibrant, murky use of tone.
I feel this too is an effective source of imagery for a solo performance as it is the complete opposite this Gogh’s work and could arguably be used to convey the emotional status of someone trapped in a living nightmare. I also have considered a one on one solo performance, in which I would have a large bed in the stairwell and ask the participant to listen to me talk and have them share their experiences of things that go bump in the night. (No pun intended.)
My only reserve on this is if I was to have a random spectator, would they feel able talking to a complete stranger in a intimate space? I was also wondering how this would affect being observed or graded as it would defeat the objective if there was more then one person in the room…
I’m honestly not sure.
I may have to consider this in future performance Ideas.