There are a number of events where Evelyn's birthday, either as the party itself or its rehearsal form, has been performed I want to share with you. Included in these events are some audience 'before and afters', testimonials to the experience of participation.
I spoke to my friend Gimi about the presentation of the events.
A large part of the experience of the performance is the queering of the space. The moment when you realise this is not a traditional concert format and therefore there are new rules and boundaries to discover. I was concerned if I invited people to Evelyn’s birthday party, maybe the magic of the initial transformation would be lost. If the audience carried individual expectations to the concert, it might be harder to unify and find community with them. Also, I was concerned that people might see the event and disregard it as a private thing, like, ‘I don’t know Evelyn, so I don’t think I should go’.
We decided in the end to lean into the birthday party scenario, in order to discover what might happen when these mysteries are left in tact. On reflection I like that the whole experience, from invitation to the end of the concert there existed the birthday narrative, because I believe in making everything genuine, the authenticity of the performance and intention behind it become strengthened.
I did in the end add a small disclaimer on the event stating that you didn't need to know Evelyn. Just in case.
In this example, an invitation to sings comes with a verbal introduction. I present the idea that they will, at the birthday party make a chord using balloons, but for now we will practise by singing. We make a simple A major chord by splitting the room into 3 parts. Crucially however, I don’t make it clear when in the song the chord will appear, so the audience have a key the whole way through the song that they are able to choose to use, or not. The choice, as ever is an important tool to use: as a community, I want us all to have free will, and desire to use our creativity to enhance the sound of the music.
This piece was the development of the original 'Do You Still Love Her' set of songs that I began experimenting with in late 2020. It began as a song performed with the speaker over my face, however as Evelyn’s birthday was developed, it transformed into something much more extrovert. I wanted to find a way to give the audience the microphone, transferring the power of amplification and performance to them. I use the microphone to ask a question, then place the mic in front of a member of the audience and allow them to answer it. This serves not just the individual but the group, as suddenly the potential that they might be given the opportunity to respond is made. In between questions I invite the audience to sing a drone note together to an ahhhh sound, to reinforce the group sonic identity.
The piece has a keyboard ostinato and a drum machine. At the beginning, I allow someone in the audience to volunteer to play the keyboard. This mixing of audience on stage and audience with the mobilizes the hierarchy of traditional performance structure, and allows ideas of community to be built during the performance. By empowering audience members with responsibilities like playing, and answering questions with a mic, we are able to share the responsibility of performance: They are relying on me, but also I on them. In this way, we make a community together. The actual material I think is pretty weird, it’s kind of sad, but it has this game show like positivity which makes an interesting melting pot of emotions. I believe the bewildering and possibly nonsensical material of the song makes it easy for audiences to participate, because there are no rules. There is no happy, or sad, or purpose, it’s just sort of strange.
At the beginning I place instruments on the ‘stage’ area in front of me. Initially this serves a similar purpose to the invitation to decorate: by mobilizing the audience, they are able to feel the space is not fixed, that they have freedom to move around, if they choose. Also by giving them the choice of what to play, it first inspires a curiosity in sounds, and later an ownership of the sound they chose, hopefully allowing them to feel a commitment and responsibility to play well and contribute with felling.
At the beginning of the performance I invited the audience to decorate the room with banners and balloons. This act of participation strengthens the narrative and allows the audience to buy into the fantasy. It also creates an ‘access all areas’ space, where you are not limited to your seat in the audience but to all areas around the space, and behind the stage. In a way the space is democratic, and everyone’s effort and input is required in order to succeed in the performance. The ongoing nature of the act presents the audience with choices as well. If at any moment they wish to not sing or participate, they have an option to decorate, and create something visual instead.
The performance of the birthday party was not as successful as the performance of the rehearsal. This was my first and only attempt to perform the birthday party again after beginning the rehearsal format, and I was reminded of how restrictive the birthday party format is. In addition to this, performing, especially sining outside is difficult and doesn’t sound particularly great. This being said, the audience I had gathered around me were attentive and participating, and I managed to include a few of the public around in the park. I went over to some people to give them instruments to play, and they played along. I spoke to one guy afterwards about his experience.
The set, as always ends with the Evelyn’s Birthday party song, which begins with an audience chant of Evelyn/It’s your/Birthday/Today with the room split in three and me taking the word ‘birthday’. In this example, the keyboard actually turned itself off twice which was a genuine technical glitch, but ended up fitting pretty well into the rehearsal narrative. As part of the decorations, I bought a confetti cannon and announced that during this song at the birthday party we will let off the cannon, but requested it to be not set off during the rehearsal. It was my intention, that as we had made a playful space of joy and participation, an emboldened member of the audience would take the initiative to set it off anyway, however I asked 1 person before the performance that if this did not happen, to do it anyway. I guess the plan didn’t work because it was that person in the end that set it off. However I think just having the opportunity there was an interesting tension, and the fact that it was let off eventually broke the tension and perhaps crated a will within people, that you do not always have to behave as you are told in a performance space. This is a brand new experiment, so I would like in the future to explore ways to make the temptation impossible to resist, without having to verbally give someone the task.
On the 22nd of May 2022, I organised Evelyn’s birthday party in the park. The set would be a performance of the actual birthday party as opposed to the rehearsal. The intention was to see if I could queer an undefined space, and draw passers by and members of the public into the performance to participate.
Initially, in order to publicise the event and create a sense of community and participation before the event date, I built a giant birthday card and placed it in the place where the performance would take place, with pens attached and instructions to sign your name on the card.
I was optimistic when, as soon as I had hung the card in a tree, a group of kids walked past in their football kits and had wanted to sign the card. Two of them stepped up and signed and the rest moved on. Not that I expected the kids would actually come to the concert, but I felt like I had made a piece of participatory public art that, if nothing else introduced the community to the idea of community concerts in public spaces. Unfortunately however, when I returned the following day to check on the progress, the card had disappeared, leaving only the roll of string I got stuck in the branches as I tried to trow it over when hanging it up. There was a woman cleaning out the rabbit hutch next to the tree wearing a Kommune shirt, so I asked her if she knew anything about it. She fetched her boss who came and told me that his colleagues had thrown it away, as it is forbidden to hang anything in trees (unless you are a political party during an election). I was devastated. He said he thought the card was funny, and was apologetic that they had had to throw it away. I was not deterred however, so I made another one.
This time I tied the card to a tree stump, following the advise of the groundskeeper, Torben. Unfortunately I don’t believe this card was as successful… there was a dog paw print which broke my waterproofing system and the card got wet and looked kind of gross. Also someone had written ‘fuck’ around the paw print, which I don’t know was an insult to the card, or if they were trying to apologise for the paw print… either way it didn’t look great in the end. The cherry on the cake was when performing the birthday set in the park, I had left the card nearby so I might get a few final signatures, but then a few dogs saw it as a great place to piss, so it got even more soaked. The card is maybe still there, I don't dare go back and check...
I enjoyed making these interviews, talking with the audience in a concentrated way, and hearing that my intentions behind the performance are not only clear, but successful. About embracing the awkwardness, the humour and the honesty of the performance, and how the birthday party narrative is a successful and clear way in order to invite people into the performance space and make a functional and joyful community.
Not everyone, however, reacts as possitivly to the performance as the people I spoke to above. When I talked with fellow musician Sisa about her experience of my performance, she had some different thoughts. I wanted to talk with her specifically, because after she saw me perform at Klub Primi on the 15th of March 2022, I had the sense that she did not enjoy it in a way that I know others did. She spoke to me about her ideas of community, how she feels they cannot be created out of thin air, or during a 25 minute performance. We also spoke about paying, and how she expects as a paying member of the public to receive something as an audience. I ask a lot of my audience, and I had not previously considered the idea of owing anything to them. If they pay 100kr to see me perform, they may have a certain expectation to receive something in return. I believe I offer an experience, to reveal community and relate to each other in a meaningful and musical way. I believe I achieve that, however it may not always match every persons expectation. I started to consider if it was important that every single person in the audience buy into the experience. In community music, it is important to consider the feelings and vulnerabilities of each member, and of the group as a whole. This takes time, and perseverance; working on your toes and constantly changing tack, as I discussed with Pete Churchill. However, as this is community music in a performance context, I need to consider both aspects. What I do is a presentation of community music. I have identified the most integral performative aspects and I use them in the presentation of my artistic practise. It is therefore not possible, or perhaps irrelevant to explore the more long term benefits of community music; social building, individual growth, cultivating musical ability. I can simply offer what I can offer in the short time I have the stage. I can reveal community and present the audience with the opportunity to engage with it, or not.
I recorded our chat:
As a means to directly communicate the audiences experience, I decided to make documentations of 1 audience member before and after each show, asking them what do you expect of live music, and if they have any thoughts on participation in general. Unfortunately I wasn't able to acheive this for the Literaturhaus concert, becuase I was just too distracted