- P.141 It does seem to be the case, however, that the term ‘site-specific’ only really began to have currency in theatrical (rather than sculptural)terms in the mid- to late-1980s, with companies such as the influential Welshbased Brith Gof popularizing the form. And it is only in the last four years or so that newspaper reviewers (particularly in The Guardian and Observer) have begun to use the term to describe theatre and performance works (the London International Festival of Theatre has, together with companies such as Edinburgh’s Grid Iron, been instrumental in bringing such work to the attention of reviewers).
- P144 Parks and playgrounds might be grouped with beaches in their status as public spaces; such sites are, as Hanon Reznikov notes in interview with Cindy Rosenthal, ‘homo ludens’ spaces, play spaces (in Cohen-Cruz, 1998, p. 157). Though operating differently from the street, these spaces allow performance to utilize one of the ideas behind street theatre: hoping, as Sophia Lycouris of Kunstwerk-Blend notes,‘to attract the passers-by’. The park, along with the beach and, indeed, the shopping centre, is suggestive of ‘public inhabitability’ (Bloomer and Moore, 1977, p. 84) and therefore is a factor in enabling artists 'to make the work accessible' (London Bubble).
- P.146 Creation Theatre Company, however, persist in re-using the same site for more than one performance under the label ‘site-specific’.
Categorization
- P.147 The Whalley Range All Stars echo the feelings of many when they state, ‘Our work doesn’t fit easily into convenient “boxes”,’when it comes to funding. ‘Site-specific’ does not operate as a category in itself in this context: instead, such work has been variously funded under the banners of ‘visual arts’,‘combined arts’, ‘performing arts’, ‘drama’,‘multi disciplinary arts’, ‘dance’, ‘collaborativearts’, and ‘theatre’. In some recent instances, though, it has helped to work across categories and between disciplines.
- P.148 The survey highlights one avenue of funding (and therefore an opportunity for creating work) that presents itself only in terms of site-specific performance. Many artists receive commissions from site-owners or controllers: that is, by people who would not normally commission theatre work, for spaces that would not normally see this work.
Site-Specific or Site-Generic?
- P.149 ‘Can site-specific performance tour?’ This is a question that might more explicitly be phrased, ‘Does “site-specific” imply “site-exclusive”?’
- And while Boilerhouse work does sometimes tour, as Pinson points out,that’s not pure site-specificity. You can recreate a work in response to a number of differing sites, which is totally valid in itself and is an element of site-specificity but is different from making a piece of work in response to one specific site.
- P.150 (Wrights & Sites)
- Gregg Whelan, of the live art partnership Lone Twin, argues that their work does not tour ‘in a “repeating’ way” but rather that ‘the concerns of the work are recontextualized for a particular environment’.
Witnessing
- P.151 More than two thirds of the companies and solo artists surveyed identified ‘reaching a wider audience’ as a reason for working in the site-specific mode.
What Spectators Experience
- P.153 It emphasizes the significance of the spatial encounter and is conceived as a whole experience for the spectator.
- While the term ‘event’ is widely used, The Lion’s Part’s experience of accessibility cannot
apply to all site-specific performance. Each site, whether outdoors or indoors, has
differing practicalities of either restricting or encouraging access. In some cases there may
be two separate audiences: the paying, knowing audience, and the unsuspecting,
accidental audience that, for Bill Aitchison, ‘adds to the complexity of the event’. - P.154 For Petra Kuppers, artistic director of The Olimpias, site-specific performance is ‘attentive to the local community and its ways of inhabiting its environment’. The company ‘work with the community to take new forms of ownership of site, re-interpret the site, keep its history and presence alive’.
- Escaping the theatre building often means escaping the rehearsal room, and, if a performance is to be created from and in a public place, a fluid and provisional audience is
formed. - Carolyn Deby, of the dance company Sirens Crossing, also reminds us that the challenge in site-specific work is not only to attract a wider audience but to enable this audience to have a ‘radically different relationship’ to the performance.
Adjustment
- P.157 Cathy Turner of Wrights & Sites finds that ‘a work can be more or less aggressive in its assertion of itself within the space’ and prefers to work with an idea of performance that ‘may be no more than a set of footprints in the sand’. The notion of ‘building into’ or ‘dressing’ a space, adding to it as part of a performance, might be an attempt to create a stage environment within the location, so reducing the physical aspects of that location available to be worked with, but it might alternatively offer ‘an interesting way of responding to and interrogating the space’ (Storm).
- P.158 Site-specific performance engages with site as symbol, site as story-teller, site as structure.
Wilkie, Fiona (2002) 'Mapping the Terrain: A Survey of Site-Specific Performance in Britain' in New Theatre Quarterly. Vol. 18. No. 70: 140-160.
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