Once we had come to an agreement about working with a communal spirit – we looked into places where we could learn what the community here in Lincoln does for itself. St Mary’s Church near the centre of Lincoln does a great deal for people who need help. They cater for the homeless, encouraging them to learn how to cook themselves; they allow people who have suffered with substance abuse to work within their own community and lots more.
We went as a group to interview the members of the team there and learnt a great deal about what is possible. We explored ideas of performance where we would film aspects of each and every day within this community and then replay it back to the audience in a studio. This performance would hopefully encourage people to be more aware of establishments like St. Mary’s who have a long track record of helping people and providing for them. The performance we were thinking of created would have ended with some sort of pilgrimage where we would have asked the audience to walk with us to St. Mary’s and see for themselves what is possible if you are open minded.
Whilst this exploration of performance was going on we realised that as group we still felt as though there was no purpose to the performance and so we decided to explore other options. After a lot of deliberation and meetings we ended up looking at the idea of cause and effect. How something small can create a large effect. So for example, something as simple as throwing stones in a river creates a ripple effect that lasts much longer than the act of throwing the stone.