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Final Practical Project requires the most artistic and creative in the BA Hons Drama, Applied Theatre and Performance course of the University of East London. It runs through all the third year, from 5 October 2017 to 17 May 2018.

Term 1 the students started with looking at the identification of an autobiographical artist/solo performer which is 9 in 11 students chose this platform. The other 2 students chose autobiographical in a group. The questions: What is that chip on your shoulder? Is that just yours? Or is there a community? were raised in the workshop and the newspapers were used as the materials for the answers. From that, the students presented their first applied theatre idea for their performance with knowing in mind that it would change later on in the process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a South East Asian artist who identified as a queer and has been through a difficult time in last 10 months, the artist was concretely aware that my identity in the Britain society would be the main theme for his performance. The story of his new life since living in the United Kingdom in last 3 years has collected his new experience in life both in good and bad. However, at that point, the focus was about the experience of the artist with the Home Office. It was a remarkable tragedy after a lifetime tragedy of losing his husband to cancer. Now, looking back, it was not a good time as the artist was not ready; grieving takes time and healing takes even more time.

Continuously, the students looked at the way that the performance incorporates the social & political through the autobiographical material. The students explored the way other artists told their story, ways to generate material during the creative workshop. Bryony Kimmings was the first artist we looked at. Her full play Sex Idiot which 55mins long was an inspiration for the artist to develop the idea of a frank, bold gesture that has nothing to do with being South East Asian stereotype.

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The first guest lecturer was Director Ellen Havard from Forced Entertainment. This theatre company is a group of six artists, tries to explore what theatre and performance can mean in contemporary life and is always a kind of conversation or negotiation, something that needs to be live (Entertainment, 2018). Director Ellen had helped the students with crucial basic acting skills and ways to move from an initial idea to first steps in a process. After this session, the artist started to have a doubt about the Home Office Idea; as one of the exercise was crying and laughing from level 0 to 10, the artist realised that the emotions in the performance have to real, especially in autobiographical, but also it has to be manageable in order to deliver a powerful performance to the audience. Even though the scratch was relatively formed (please see the script version), the artist decided to discuss his feeling with the lecturer in next tutorial.

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The lecturer Kelly Green took the artists’ concern seriously and encouraged the artist to be confident in any change he feels he needed to. The new idea of an Asian gay male in Britain society has been kept but instead of the experience with Home Office, the artist would like to try out the idea of the way society looks at him and the way the LGBTQI+ looks at him. The artist shared verbally several modest experiences in his daily life as the story in a café, tube, online dating. The lecturer found the materials are valuable to show to the audience, she not just supported the idea but also helped the artist to frame the work at hand. This shifting point is the first significant move of the final performance. In the other words, lecturer Kelly Green was taking the artists’ baby to walk the first step.

Kate Hargreaves and Kat MacGarr were the second guest lecturers. They are from Gideon Reeling Theatre Group which make theatre, put on parties, design games, provide performers, actors, music, designers, directors and producers, create brand experiences and stunts, design and build sets, design and hire out costumes, provide educational and corporate training experiences, provide theatrical and educational consultants, and write scripts… (REELING, 2018) Kate and Kat had helped the students with characterization and then from that the students started to idealisation the beginning, middle and the end of their performance piece. After this lesson, the artist decided to impress the audience about his adult theme right after the curtain call by the opening with the nudity and conversation with his best friend about sex. Then the performance will lead to his exploration of online dating app and people react to his race. At this point, the artist had not had the ending. (Please see the script version 2)

The workshop that the students met and explored Katy Baird's autobiographical practice was the most interesting lesson. The contrast of reaction to Katy’s controversial work had consciously encouraging the artist to stick to his identity in bold adult theme. These conflictions from the students have strong recognition to the artist about applying for Katy Baird’s work. If the artist is able to use Katy Baird’s theoretical and practice into his own work, it would create a strong powerful reaction to the audience. However, at the same time, the artist would like to avoid the confliction reactions as he is aware himself is a fresher in the industry, a smooth way would be more secure to his career. Furthermore, that way would help his work to apply outside of the university after he graduated. If Katy uses her body to make the audience feel and think, the artist would use his skin as a visual tool for the audience to think about race and sexuality. This became one of the most important elements of his work as it would challenge the audience about South East Asian stereotype that in culture, people do not show their body and they do not talk about sex.

 

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http://www.katybaird.com/solo-work/ 

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RESEARCH

The artist has looked at his own theatre experience and put the knowledge into the scratch. In Southwark Cabaret Underbelly Festival 2015, the artist had an opportunity to see Briefs show– a naughty silly tacky and most of all “glorious perverted fun”. This experience encouraged the artist to bring humour into the adult theme. He realised that laughing with sexuality jokes would be the key to make the audience come into the artist’s work.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As in Edinburgh Fringe festival 2016, the artist attended Camille O‘Sullivan performance and felt in love with the way Camille tell her story. He learnt from that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

During the Placement module, in 2017, the artist was fortunate to shadow the cabaret prince of Darkness Dusty Limits. After listening to Dusty’s album GRIN, the artist felt the darkness and beautiful in Dusty work. This inspired the artist to use the same music in both sad and happy way to his performance (Glad to be gay).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On 31 January 2018, the level 6 students went to see So Many Reasons at Camden People’s Theatre. This production was informed by the FPP main lecturer Kelly Green. So Many Reasons is a story about the unique influence of mother have on how a girl understand the world, from the perspective of a first generation British Ghanaian woman. Exploring cultural and generational shifts, religion and sexuality, this bold new show asks what happens when the main character realises mums don’t always know best. This story created by Racheal Ofori and she also is the only actor in it. This concreted me even more about my idea for Final Practice Project.

 Ofori “boldly depicted the weight of cultural heritage amid the pressures of millennial experience and the quest for personal contentment.” (Stage, 2018) then the artist learned from her how to show his own journey of who he met, what he experienced and how he realised about himself and what he learnt to be strong to live here.  It is unlikely to consider his FPP as a 'play’ as traditionally understood, formally conventional work, straight monologues, or any work made according to the usual writer-director-actor hierarchies. It would be a combination of cabaret, a play which would create the opportunity for my skills to show as the musical theatre actor.

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During the research, the artist found Tim Miller. In December 1992, Tim Miller with his performance work named My Queer Body in Manhattan is very familiar with his political activism. There are many common things between Tim Miller and the artist himself: they are both queer, they both perform themselves. One of what Miller did on that sold-out performance was creating a community among the people gathered that evening; and that my dream goal. The artist also would passionately to invent the initial titters turned, to laughter, sorrow, tears, and joy in his performance.

In Spilt Milk, Tim Miller showed the sweetness of a young gay man coming to San Francisco for the first time and encounters which turn into defining moments for him and for the audience (Bonney, 1999). This idea inspired the artist to engage his FPP to share his personal stories about being a South East Asian Gay men in British society. Tim Miller is one of the most inspirations to the artist. After researching about Tim, the artist decided to cut a part of his script, making sure the main focus of the work will be LGBTQI+

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LEARNING OUTCOME

Toward to the end of the FPP process, the artist was fortunate to have a session with the co-leader of the Drama, Applied Theatre, and Performance, Liselle Terret. This has helped the artist to gain his lifetime experience about how to look at how to create his emotions journey through his performance. Subsequently, Liselle helped to clarify several materials of the artist’s work such as images, pronunciation, and direction. The confessional to the audience at the beginning of the performance was guided by Liselle that to use the theory of cabaret form. The result has put the quality of the artist’ work to a higher level.

 

The final decision for the name of the performance is Bubble T. The idea was inspired the New York's Queer Asian Party, found by makeup artist Stevie Huynh and his friends: artists Nicholas Andersen and Vivianne Yi and designers Pedro Vidallon, Paul Tran, and Karlo Bueno Bello. In 2017, they decided to create their own roving monthly dance party catering to creative Asians in the Williamsburg-Bushwick-Greenpoint triangle. (The Cut, 2017)

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Both 'Bubble' and 'T' are famous in-joke in LGBTQI+ community. The artist sanctified with this find and he knows the audience would found the familiarity and humorous. 

 

The performance would not complete without the valuable direction from lecturer Paul Woodward. Paul guided out wonderfully the way to re-structure the performance which divided the works into different parts and that helped the artist to develop his work step by step, avoiding the panic of overloading and overwhelming. The focus only on gay online dating app was suggested by Paul and it put the work much cleaner, sharper and more centralised.

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Not just only practical side, lecturer Paul also provided literature for student research on the subject of his performance: Grindr Survivr: How to Find Happiness in the Age of Hookup Apps, a book by Andrew Londyn. There are several lines was inspired from this book. The artist borrowed some other literatures of Tim Miller from Paul which he learnt very much about a queer autobiographical. 

The refining step of the performance was not started until 24 hours before the show-time. The ending of the performance was not fixed, the artist himself was also nervous, even though he is aware of creativity does not come easily, sometimes even not the right time. However, the final tutorial wit Paul had opened to a fantastic idea for the ending of the performance. With the doubt about the time limitation, Paul also suggested the artist still keep the song Glad to be gay as a plan B. However, with the determination, the artist finished with the new ending and refined all the rest of the media resources for his work overnight just before the performance, only 10 hours before show-time. With a couple of new lines to learn, the artist believes the final script was the best result from him and the UEL team have worked together.

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It would be deficiency not to mention an important find from lecture Kelly Green about the lacking of information about 'profile picture approval' from an app in the script. Without this, the performance would not be convincible. Kelly has been with the artist and his classmates with all 'up' and 'down' during the whole process. More than just a lecturer, Kelly took care of student's mental and made sure everyone is good to keep continue. Even though when the module has finished, after our last lesson, Kelly informed me an opportunity to develop my first idea for FPP about Home Office. I appreciate what Kelly has done very much. The message she sent me below I would like to keep it in my mind as my mentor: 

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CONTEXTUAL STATEMENT 

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Bubble T is the artists first autobiography which performed to the audience. It is very important and meaningful to him. The artist conceived in mind carefully the potential of getting his performance further before he started to rehear. Bubble T serves the artist’ request of representing his identity South East Asian and also raises the issue of racism in LGBTQI+ community which the British society is not aware very much of. The production does not require a big team, 1 actor, 1 light controller and one sound controller (these could be combined). Therefore it would be convenient to bring Bubble T to different venues. 

 

The message from Bubble T is very important in current the United Kingdom politic situation.  Brexit has divided the country to two and immigrants are being looked at even more distinguish after terrorism events lately. These created a comfortable path for racism and hate to develop in general. In consequence, Bubble T contributes indirectly to step up the appealing of change for the better behavior in society. 

 

The artist will research the supportive for Bubble T to continue. However, with limited contacts in the industry and the artist is a fresher, he knows it would be wise to seek the guidance from lecturers and the Drama, Applied Theatre and Performance team. 

 

Bibliography

Bonney, J., 1999. Extreme Exposure: An Anthology of Solo Performance Texts from the Twentieth Century. . In: New York : Theatre Communications Group Inc.,U.S..

Entertainment, F., 2018. Forced Entertainmence. [Online]
Available at: https://www.forcedentertainment.com/about/
[Accessed 11 May 2018].

REELING, G., 2018. GIDEON REELING. [Online]
Available at: http://gideonreeling.co.uk/about-us
[Accessed 13 May 2018].

Stage, T., 2018. The Stage. [Online]
Available at: https://www.thestage.co.uk/reviews/2018/many-reasons-review-camden-peoples-theatre-london/
[Accessed 20 February 2018].

Cut, T., 2018. The Cut. [Online]

Available at: https://www.thecut.com/2017/12/bubble-t-queer-asian-dance-party.html 

[Accessed 20 April 2018].