Invisible Theater:
We chose three different approaches to invisible theatre. However, they all had in common that we wanted to perform "normal" everyday occurrences as invisible theater in order to see how people react to it.
”Life is a stage” William Shakespeare
And to sum up that was our inspiration for this assignment. Each day we interact with other people, we are not afraid of letting other people listen to our conversations on the mobile phone, we put our life’s out there on facebook, and my space ect. But when it comes to connecting with strangers on the street we are sorrounded by an invisible bubble of private sphere. A bubble we wanted to break just for a few minutes.
Project 1: We have all experienced walking down the street, when all of a sudden a complete stranger walking past speaks to you, but often does not look you in the eyes while doing it. Perhaps you are the stranger yourself speaking out of nowhere to people you have never met before. However, the person is not speaking to you, but to a person on the other end of the telephone cleverly hidden by a small headset matching the ear, so that people often mistaken him for talking to himself or strangers. We are all acquainted with this one way or the other, but how do people really react to the fact of people getting close to them, looking them in the eyes and talking to them – just in fact without doing so at all? Will this intrusion of personal space result in smiles and laughs or angry faces?
We want to emphasize it quite a bit though, so that people will notice us but without making it so obvious that they become spectators instead of random witnesses of the scene. We will stop up, look them in the eyes and speak loudly ( in both danish, english and german).
Result of project 1: People did not react very strongly to this. Some stopped for a moment and looked confused, a quite normale reaction to a stranger stopping up, looking you in the eyes and asking a question. However, only one person reacted with a response to the question, but not with words, only with a surprised sound. It seems that these people did not want to interact with us, even when being asked a question.
Only one man reacted a little bit more and asked if he could help with something.
Project 2:** Lady in distress**
We wanted to make a connection with people on the street. Making this piece we wanted to investigate how helpful other people are and how they would react to a lady walking in a crowded place and suddenly by “accident” she drops a net of oranges.
We tried the experiment twice. The first time was on the bridge by Magasin. It only took a couple of seconds before a young man was helping to collect the oranges. And then suddenly two guards came running very fast and helped as well. Rebekka, who was the lady in distress, told them she didn’t know how it happened and that she was very clumsy. The guards were very sweet and understanding.
The second time, two ladies helped collecting the oranges, while other people where just walking by and almost stepping on the oranges. To sum up people on the street are very private but if something unexpected happens or someone needs help, they are very helpful.
Project 3:** The public argument**
For our next project we thought about something, which would make people maybe to react a little bit more. We thought that maybe a fight would require a stronger reaction. Maybe they would even interfere
So chanette and rebekka walked down the street and pretend that there were fighting, about a boy.
I walked behind them with a camera and recorded it.
They got really loud and so they got the attention of several people. Of course the most people looked at rebekka and chanette
( becaus ethey were quit loud),but they did not turn around or stoped.They were curious but did not feel disturbed by it.
Apart from a women and a girl. The women stopped and looked at them with a worried expression in her face, but she did not say anything.
The girl also stopped and while she unlocked her bike she really looked interested at the two girls. She seemed really curious but did not say anything as well. We are living in a culture of curiosity, gossip and a craving for entertainment. When people argue in public we cant help listening to their conversation. It shows an interest for other people and their lives, but it can also be very annoying when people brake into our private sphere when we are in public.
Our invisible theater in relation to Boal:
Invisible theater was originally developed by Augusto Boal, as part of his Theater of the Oppressed, which is a method that uses theatre as means of knowledge and transformation of the interior reality in the social and relational field. The public becomes active and will explore, analyze and transform the reality in which they are living.
In the introduction of “From the Theatre of the Opressed” it says:
“Boal works in interactive performance, creating opportunities for interaction around problems that confront ordinary people”.
What makes the incidences invisible theater is the fact that the presentation of this scene will take place in the shopping streets of Århus and people who will take part in our scene will be there and do it by chance. They will not be spectators but actually participants just without knowing it.
This is interesting to use as invisible theatre just because it is something that could actually happen in our everyday walk down the shopping streets. It deals with ordinary people and an ordinary scene.
Group 13: katrin, rebekka-andersson and chanette-parbo
