Posted in Performance Development

‘Would it kill you to go on a date?’

Posted on by Laurence Grunbaum

My dating life hasn’t been very fruitful. I’ve yet to myself a relationship with another guy, or actually ‘date’ someone for more than a few weeks.

I think the biggest barrier when it comes to dating is my own self consciousness. I worry that people will be staring at me, or that the date will be awkward and we’ll have nothing to talk about. However I do think that this stems from my own expectations about what a date is.

Going for a coffee with someone seems to be the first thing to do just to see if you actually get on, and then you can go from there. But in the past I have been out for dinner as a first date, then failed to see him again after that. I have watched films with guys, and this hasn’t lead to anything more. There seems to be an area in which I am failing.

Maybe I am too quick to judge someone on something that I don’t like. Maybe I expect the perfect man to be sat in front of me and not have any faults. Maybe I am just too caught up on wanting something to last and someone to like me and make me feel wanted. But I can’t force myself to like someone, and vice versa. Nobody is perfect, myself included (hard to believe I know!) but from childhood we are fed heteronormative ideals about relationships which the have an impact on our future relationships.

There will always be the person who asks about a gay couple ‘who is the man and who is the woman?’. But the answer will always be ‘neither’ because that is the reality of a homosexual relationship, it is simply two men or two women who just happen to like each other, just like how heterosexual relationships function.

It is all well and good that I say this, but it has been a while since I have been on a date, so maybe going on some dates would be the best place to start. So would it kill you to go on a date? The answer is no. So I now need someone to go on a date with. Any takers?

Posted in Multimedia

Two Men Dancing with Violin (1895)

Posted on by Laurence Grunbaum

Even though an early film, the first to use sycronised film and music, the film shows two men dancing together. It is interesting to see two men documented on film despite sodomy laws in America making homosexual acts illegal.

Many years before Disney’s ‘prince and princess’ films were made, the subject of films was far different. Films tended to be more experimental and dream-like such as the films of George Melies or documentary such as the Roundhay Garden Scene made by Le Prince in 1888 in Oakley Grange, Leeds.

Roundhay Garden Scene (1888) Le Prince

A Trip to the Moon (1902) Melies

As film has evolved genre has played a big part in individual studios’ work. Disney are famous for hand draw fairytales, whereas Universal produce blockbuster films on an epic scale.

Posted in Influences

Body Image

Posted on by Laurence Grunbaum

Body image is an important aspect when it comes to relationships and dating.

The media is very influential on body image, with magazines and newspapers in particular often publishing stories about how imperfect a celebrity is.

Readers then start to expect perfection in people, which feeds into their relationships.
body_image

Over the years body image has changed, from the advert above it shows that skinny women were not desirable. They were encouraged to be curvy.

1950s AMERICAN BODYBUILDING MUSCLE MEN Vintage Comic Book Advertisement

However, men were expected to be muscular and strong.

Body image for men has not changed very much since the 1950s, whereas women are still being influenced to be skinny or curvy depending on the article they read.

This gives mixed messages about what to find attractive, however it is not a choice who we fancy or want to have a relationship with. But it is obvious from the adverts above that body image has always been an issue.

Posted in Practitioners and Performances

‘No one in all the world is more alone than he’

Posted on by Laurence Grunbaum

Reflecting on the solo aspect of the module is the first step in the process of devising performance.

Reading the preface to Extreme Exposure: an Anthology of Solo Performance Texts in the Twentieth Century by Jo Bonney, threw up interesting points of solo performance work. Reading the introduction to the anthology, gave an overall impression of what solo performance could be. Although solo performance is ‘not standup comedy, not cabaret, not one-character play, not lecture or reading or poetry’ (Bonney, 2000, p. xi) it can be an emulsion of all of these things, or not anything like these things at all.

The place in which the performance takes place is also important as this can vary from ‘mainstream theatres, alternative performance spaces, clubs, galleries and museums to abandoned storefronts and street corners.’ (Bonney, 2000, p. xii) This threw up more interesting ideas about where solo performances could take place. Although the final performances will be studio based, they could take place in other places. During the discussion about the text, the idea of making invisible theatre in a space such as a club would most likely go unnoticed due to the atmosphere of the venue and how others perceived the performance.

This discussion sparked ideas about performance style and areas in which we could research. Talking about our own lives also bought up points about the areas of our own lives that we could explore during the research and devising time.

 

Works Cited

Bonney, Jo (2000) Extreme Exposure: an Anthology of Solo Performance Texts in the Twentieth Century, New York: Theatre Communications Group