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For our April Live Night, we’re partnering with Arts House for a night out at Jodee Mundy’s Personal at 7.30pm, April 26 at Arts House.
Personal, a blend of performance, storytelling, multimedia and animation that delves into the contradictions of living in a Deaf family in a society that views the family with voyeuristic curiosity, is courtesy of our Stage Partner Arts House in North Melbourne.
To get your Witness Live Night discount, book a ticket here for the April 26 performance and enter “witness” in the promo code box when you book. Then (this is important!) leave a note here to tell us that you’re coming.
Please note that that the venue is wheelchair accessible and that for this Live Night there will be Auslan interpreters available. If there are people who want this service for all Live Nights, please let us know. We don’t have the resources to provide them yet, but if there’s a demand, we will find some.
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Great to see the spread of theatres & productions – looking forward to another great night – yes I’m coming.
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Dear all – it looks like there’s around a dozen of us coming tomorrow night (according to Arts House – it seems not everyone posted here hem hem) – can’t wait! Look out for Ben, Carissa and me in the foyer before the show, we’ll be standing there like dags holding some kind of WITNESS sign. Afterwards we’ll be gathering in the supper room at the Town Hall, and the bar will be open!
Looking forward to some intense and fun conversation! Rob’s review is now online, in case you haven’t seen it, to get the ball rolling – though you might want to read it afterwards – https://witnessperformance.com/personal-flitting-between-languages/
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Dear all – it looks like there’s around a dozen of us coming tomorrow night (according to Arts House – it seems not everyone posted here hem hem) – can’t wait! Look out for Ben, Carissa and me in the foyer before the show, we’ll be standing there like dags holding some kind of WITNESS sign. Afterwards we’ll be gathering in the supper room at the Town Hall, and the bar will be open!
Looking forward to some intense and fun conversation! Rob’s review is now online, in case you haven’t seen it, to get the ball rolling – though you might want to read it afterwards – https://witnessperformance.com/personal-flitting-between-languages/
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Thank you so much, all of you who came to our First Real Witness Live Night. Such an interesting conversation, and I really enjoyed the generous discussion. Team Witness was a bit thin last night – Rob had to lecture in Ballarat, and Carissa, who was supposed to be there, had to go to hospital that afternoon (lots of get well thoughts for Carissa!) But hopefully we’ll all be on board for the next one. It was a pity too that the technical SNAFU that meant a lot of the audiovisual component was missing made it feel difficult to discuss the show properly, because we could never be quite certain what the show was supposed to be. But even so, I felt that we got into some very interesting areas.
I strongly felt that the “meeting room” vibe wasn’t right, lovely as it was for Arts House to set a room aside for us. Live Nights work best as relaxed and informal social gatherings. Next time we’ll be in a bar, so it will feel less like we’re having some kind of executive meeting. Also, it’s important to remember that in these discussions nobody is “wrong”, and that listening to others is at least as important as being willing to proffer your own point of view. Sometimes the shyer people there found it difficult to find space to speak.
Would love to hear if you’ve had further thoughts about the show, and the evening in general.
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I think, in a way, we were too big a group to avoid having the shyer people feel it was hard. I remember at the Malthouse it was discussed that we would break into smaller groups and then move about between them to share ideas and therefore everyone would have more ‘space’ to talk. I think that is what Arts House was setting up for us, much like they do for their social participation experiments. We certainly had enough people to break into two smaller groups and then shift between or merge at some point after first impressions were shared.
I agree the room felt formal but it would be difficult to do in a pub I think.
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No, I had a couple of people tell me they felt it was difficult to find a way in. It’s important for people to be feel able to step into the flow of discussion and that everyone is heard, it’s about everyone there! At the Malthouse we had about 30 people (and it was also in their bar) so people could split organically into different groups and also move around if they wanted, which is hard to do if we’re all sitting around at a table. Different spaces create different dynamics. Not sure yet what space we’ll be using at the Arts Centre but it will be a bar.
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It’s a pity the show suffered technical difficulties as it made it hard to form a complete view of the work. That said, having read Rob’s review now, I mostly agree with him – as many of us said last night, the show felt shapeless. Each section felt like it had the same weight as every other and nothing seemed to build from moment to moment. I was planning to write a review, but having not seen the full show, I won’t.
I do agree that a bar atmosphere feels like it should be a better fit, more relaxing. Easier to move around and not feel like any particular person is dominating the conversation.
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Thanks, Keith. Yes, it would feel very unfair to review that night. It’s such a shame for the artists too, who know that’s not what they meant. But hey, that’s live performance for you! Anything might happen!
It’s going to be interesting to see how this process evolves into different spaces! Our task is really just to facilitate conversation and to make sure that everyone feels included and that their contributions matter. We’re trying to open up the “top down” discussion that characterises so much cultural discourse (here too on Witness, of course, since the reviewing is foregrounded). Like this whole site, we’re a work in progress.
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I am reminded of the Thoreau quote “The question is not what you look at, but what you see” and with this show I feel so clearly reminded that every audience member will come out with a different experience.
I wish those of you who felt an emptiness could have seen what I saw because I was not at all disappointed. I know bits were missing but I feel they would have been bonuses but do not in any way leave me feeling unsated for the evening.
I saw a piece of theatre which was sweet, funny, honest, brave, sad, scary and painful. It had emotional dynamic although did perhaps not plumb the extreme depths towards emotional exhaustion which seems to have become a required default.
I saw a show about hearing, not sound. A show about the receiving not the object being received. I saw a show which could be heard with the eyes and the body, not just the ears. I saw an experiential – almost picaresque – telling of life of isolation within a loving construct. I saw a play which had pathos and narrative within a bathotic structure which was still ultimately satisfying for me.
My experience was one of lots of laughter, wonder, curiosity and learning. I saw Jody the humorist, the mime, the daughter, the sister, the child, the adult, the student, and the teacher.
Was it perfect? Obviously not. I somehow feel, though, that I had a much more enjoyable and satisfying night than the rest of the group. And so I wish you could have seen what I saw.
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I agree that it possessed all those things. I think everyone there, from what I remember, saw those qualities in it. But like I said at the time, I had this sense of fascinating beginnings that instead of being developed in some way through the show leapt to another fascinating beginning. In my view, it’s a question about the dramaturgy.
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So in the end I did choose to review it. http://www.whatdidshethink.com/2018/04/personal-theatre-review.html
I also remembered the two shows that came to mind watching Personal
History History History at the Substation in 2017 https://www.weekendnotes.com/history-history-history-substation/
and
Endings at Arts House http://tamarasaulwick.com/endings/(I accidently said Tamara Searle at the gathering, but meant Tamara Saulwick which is why nobody knew what I was referring to – welcome to my world of cognitive disability, doh!)
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