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Underground Club Spaces and Interactive Performance

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Underground Club Spaces and Interactive Performance Underground Club Spaces and Interactive Performance: How might underground club spaces be read and developed as new environments for democratic/participatory/interactive performance and how are these performative spaces of play created, navigated and utilised by those who inhabit them? Kathleen Alice O‟Grady Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds School of Performance and Cultural Industries December 2009 The candidate confirms that the work submitted is her own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. Acknowledgements This thesis is dedicated to my parents who have always believed in me and to my daughter, Maisie, who is my source of inspiration and joy. Gratitude goes to my PhD supervisors Professor Mick Wallis and Dr Martin Crick, both of whom have given me continued support and guidance throughout this research. Thanks also to my colleagues and my students at the School of Performance and Cultural Industries who have encouraged me and kept me going with their sense of humour, wise words and loyalty. Thank you to all the club and festival organizers that have allowed me access to their events, particularly those involved with Planet Angel, Synergy, Duckie, Riff Raff, Planet Zogg, Speedqueen, Manumission, Shamania, Beatherder, Nozstock and Solfest. Special gratitude to Fatmoon Psychedelic Playgrounds for allowing me the room to move creatively and to develop this practice in a supportive environment. Thank you to everyone who I have interviewed over the course of this research and who have given their time willingly and freely. Big love to all the party people I have met over the years who have shared their stories, thoughts and dreams with me. Birmingham, Leeds, Stockport, Sheffield, Manchester – you know who you are. Thanks to Chi for his energy; to Louche for being the other side of my coin; and to John for being my knight. Special thanks and love go to the …floorSpace… family, old and new. Without their creativity, passion, commitment and trust, this research would not have developed in the way that it has. Abstract This thesis examines how the underground club space might be read and developed as a new environment for performances that are democratic, participatory and interactive. It positions the club space as a playful arena and asks how these performative spaces of play are created, navigated and utilised by those who inhabit them. The study looks at the club space and the activities housed therein using performance theory as a lens and as a theoretical tool for understanding the nature of the club context and the possibilities it affords for performative exchange. The thesis identifies and explores the continuum of performance practice that occurs within club spaces and analyses a number of bespoke performances that have been developed specifically for this study in order to illuminate particular theoretical models of interaction. The central premise of this research is that underground clubbing practices themselves can be understood as participatory performance. The ethos of participation prevalent within this culture results in notions of community, engagement and reciprocity being widely circulated and cited as a significant element of the underground experience by clubbers immersed in the scene. This research takes into account the belief in the provisionality of the clubbing space as a potential site of performance where people may try out alternatives, imagine (im)possibilities and play. Furthermore it explores how performance practice carried out in the underground may help develop interactive structures that can be applied to other contexts. Building on existing scholarship in club culture, this study contributes to new knowledge in the field in that it draws parallels between the club space and spaces of play as a way of modelling potential platforms for performative exchange. In addition the study develops a set of models for analysing performance that occurs in unpredictable, fluid, social spaces. Note: The author‟s name was previously Alice Bayliss. Table of Contents: Foreword 1 Introduction 3 A Consideration of Key Terms 7 An Overview of Intentions 12 Methodology 16 Fieldwork One: Participant-Observation 17 Selection of Material for Observation 21 Fieldwork Two: Interviews 23 Fieldwork Three: Practice-Led Research 25 Reflections on the „Researching Clubber‟ 26 Chapter One – Contexts Introduction 28 Clubbing and Culture – slippery definitions: unstable distinctions 30 Underground Clubbing – a genealogy 39 Ecstasy 49 E Culture and the We Generation 55 E Culture and the Question of Politics 64 From Illegal to Legal 72 Music, Noise and the Contest for Space 77 The Clubbing Self and Identity 84 Chapter Two – The Club Space as Playful Arena Invoking the Frame of Play 92 The Club Space as Playful Arena 94 The Architecture of the Playful Arena 99 Play, Function and Irrationality 105 Underground Club Cultures and the Liminal Paradigm 114 Clubs and Liminal-Liminoid Hybridity 121 Playing with the Carnivalesque 129 The Club as Performative Environment 137 Layering the Play Experience 142 Chapter Three – Reading the Club Space as a Site of Performance Introduction 145 Club Performance and its Role in the Total Experience 147 Three Routes towards the Emerging Landscape of Club Performance 1. Ibiza 150 2. New York 153 3. UK Festivals 154 Club Performance and the Aesthetic of Popular Culture 155 The Four Domains of Cultural Categorisation 161 The Phenomenological Experience of the Club Space 162 The Performing Body and the Question of Liveness 166 The Visual/Sonic Environment and the „Space‟ for Performance 181 The Club Space as Symbolic Site and the Ritualisation of Play 185 Conclusion 189 Chapter Four – Performative Interactions within the Club Space Introduction 192 Towards a Categorisation of Club Performance 192 The Ubiquity of Interaction 199 Ideologies of Interaction 202 Implications for Artist and Audience and the Improvisational Attitude 204 Interaction and the Play of the Club Space 209 Immersion – Participation – Performative Interaction 211 Chapter Five – Frameworks for Creating Interactive Club Performance Introduction 225 Research Design 225 Central Considerations for the Company Framework 229 Developing a Poetics of Interaction 240 Performance Modelling – Porous Spheroids 246 Examining Practice: …floorSpace… 249 Performance 1: VIPs 250 Performance 2: Dogs 252 Performance 3: Tea Party 253 Inter-Action and the In-betweeness of Participation 268 Challenges and Benefits for …floorSpace… at Shamania 271 Chapter Six – Conclusion A Reiteration of Intentions 276 Embracing Duality within the Research Process 278 Structural Overview 279 The Research Questions – summary of findings 279 Stage One – Contexts 280 Stage Two – Playful Arena 282 Stage Three – Club as Site of Performance 285 Stage Four – Performative Interactions 288 Stage Five – Frameworks for Creating Interactive Performance 291 Bibliography 298 List of Figures and Illustrations Fig. One: Club as Playful Arena: Frames and Points of Entry 97 Fig. Two: The Liminoid-Liminal Continuum 127 Fig. Three: Performative Shape-Shifting 247 Fig. Four: Porous Spheroid 248 Fig. Five: …floorSpace… perform VIPs at Shamania, July 2006 250 Fig. Six: …floorSpace… perform Dogs at Shamania, July 2006 252 Fig. Seven: …floorSpace… perform Tea Party at Shamania, July 2006 1 Foreword ‘You need a laugh to live: you need a life to laugh’ (Carey cited in McKay 1998: 78) I remember the first time it all made sense. It was 1998 and I was in the Q Club, a legend of a nightclub in the heart of Birmingham. I had been there many times before but never quite like this. I was standing in the main techno room along with a couple of thousand other people. It was hot, really hot. And crowded. Hundreds of sweating bodies were moving together to the thump, thump, thump of a heavy bass line. The music was incessant, all consuming, a physical assault on the senses to the extent you could feel the blood pulsing in your ears and your heartbeat keeping time with the bpm. Standing towards the back of the room on one of the raised platforms that circled the edge of the dance floor, I could feel the vibrations of the music coming up through the floor and through the soles of my trusty dancing shoes, travelling up to my gut and rattling my chest, my teeth and the ends of each hair on my head. Electric. Hundreds of arms were lifted high in the air breaking the green laser horizon with their fingers. Faces were tilted upwards to the light, illuminated by the flashing rig. Each and every one of the crowd seemed to be drinking in the energy that was coming from the DJ somewhere far off at the front of the room. They bounced it back so it filled the space above their heads created by the high vaulted ceiling of the building that used to be a church. Collective worship of a different kind. And everyone was smiling. I was completely alone – not a recognisable face around me in the sea of bodies below 2 - and yet for the first time in my twenty-eight years I felt like I belonged. All that mattered was the here and now, this moment, being with these people in this space when the rest of the city was fast asleep in bed. Filled up with light, with colour, with emotion, with rhythm, with sensation, with warmth, I realised I was smiling too. That‟s when it all made sense. What were the special characteristics and dimensions of that club world that provided such a powerful, emotional experience? How have they impacted on the way I have chosen to perceive and act in the world ever since? This study is not simply about clubbing, although that is its context.
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