Apparitions

2013 ~ Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park reopening

Working from an empty shop in Stratford for three months, residents shared their experiences of the London 2012 Olympic Games and how it affected their daily lives.

The resulting installation featured larger-than-life local residents video mapped onto the 45 metre chimney tower of Cofely District Energy Centre for the official opening of Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

The visuals were accompanied by the original score composed by danbeats and Judge and was available to stream online through the audience's phones.

How we made it

The task of developing movement from discussions and interviews was done over a series of workshops and rehearsals. Recurring themes began to develop from the discussions such as (but not limited to!):

Interaction with strangers and neighbours,
Concealing/revealing - in relation to the development of the park
Secrets surrounding the opening ceremonies, residents finding it difficult to get information about tickets, etc.
Transport - arriving, departing, tubes, buses, trains
and lots and lots of construction!

The themes were then worked into movement exploration and tasks that the participants developed either individually, with partners, in small groups or the whole group all together.

The approach to creating movement in this way is key to fostering an ownership of the material as well as addressing the various needs and abilities of such a diverse group.

There was a balance to strike between respecting the various stories we’d heard with the development of movement that can be presented in a celebratory way.The movement also had to reflect what these stories were without being too abstract, otherwise, we’d run the risk of not communicating what they’d been saying.

Lastly, as we had not confirmed the projection locations for the finale, we attempted movement ideas that could work on different potential structures and projection sites.