'Red Beast' - Sarah Spanton

Time & Tidal Flow, Red Beast - Sarah Spanton
Friday 25th April, 6.30pm, Dance Studio 2, Hull College Horncastle Building

Red Beast was a movement and projection based performance and installation. The performance took place in a small scale studio and contained no text or spoken words with only a soundtrack of abstract noise - like hooves scratching and scraping - punctuating the movements of the solo performer. The ‘Red Beast’ was positioned on a low platform seemingly asleep and perfectly still in front of a velvet curtain, with a screen to one side. The screen showed a slow moving video of the beast alongside other animals in cold stark settings, creating a wintery atmosphere in the space. Wearing a white medieval style robe, with cloth cut from the under-arms the beast was clean and well dressed laying before the seated audience, curled up on the platform. After some time the beast lifted its head and stared at the audience, conjuring a sense of unease from those who sat before it, powerless and slightly unnerved in not knowing what would happen next. After the first few minutes of anticipation slipped away and the rousing of the beast seemed complete, it lifted its arms high and took to a crouching position. It became clear that it would not move from the platform and a sense of ease spread amongst the audience.

The woman before us - performer Sarah Spanton, was the human ‘beast’. The on-screen animals were clearly wild, shown in a natural, positive and sympathetic light. The female beast however was clothed and tamer, with long red locks, showing her ‘naturalness’ only through the underarm hair on display.

The beasts' movements on the screen did not seem to reflect those in the live performance, but represented the 'Red Beast' in a more dream-like and natural twilight. The images of foxes, wolves and horses drew out the animalistic nature of the performance, yet as the images were still, it was difficult to compare human and animal directly. The audience had to re-remember the sounds, movements and reactions of wild animals, interestingly that we are now so estranged from - making any comparison of the ‘Red Beast’ to a real life animal require a vivid imagination.

The performance evoked ideas of humans as both mammals and beings and conjured thoughts of how we have surpassed in modern culture the raw essence of what we need and do for our own survival as a mammal. There was also a strong connection to gender, sexuality and the very issues of what is perceived to be 'feminine' in contemporary society. Examining the ‘red beast’ as ‘other’ was a clear objective provoked in the performance and worked as a mechanism in objectifying the female performer on display. Yet there is cause for examining whether an intentional ‘presentation of the other’ is the most effective way of engaging an audience in a meaningful dialogue. Particularly as 'Red Beast' brings such deep, diverse and significant cultural themes to the floor, for the attention of a well addressed and acknowledged audience.

Sarah Spanton’s ‘beastly’ stares were purposeful, picking out individual audience members and looking them straight in the eye. In this way, Spanton was provoking an unsettling reaction in the audience, creating a feeling of anxiousness in the space. There was an attitude about her movements and assertion in the space that also created an assertive discourse, whereby the beast communicated to us; ‘you do not know what I am, and you do not know what I will do’. And indeed, who she was, or what she was doing remained unclear. Yet it was the costume and the connections between the woman in front of us and the animals on the screen that distracted me the most.

The 'Red Beast' performance seemed to have further streams of narratives and ideologies than the images; with costume, wig, platform and curtain presenting her almost as an 'exhibit' rather than in a 'natural' environment. These framed the beast in a presentation of the Other, which stems from an old concept, discussed at length in philosophy, psychology, gender studies and performance. The concept that the self requires the Other to define itself has been expressed by many writers and philosophers including Sartre, Hegel, and Jacques Lacan. More exclusively relating to 'Red Beast' would be writers such as Simone De Beauvoir, who specify gender, in particular the female, as Other to man. The Other has thus become an important concept for studies of the sex-gender system and this line of interrogation for a performance is a fascinating area. In Sarah’s staging with platform and cutain, the ‘exhibiting of the other’ can be seen as a dominant theme of ‘Red Beast’ – yet not a solitary one.

The use of both the stage and velvet curtain referenced a traditional theatrical setting as well as one of an 'exhibit' and the audience quickly fell into the collectively learnt pattern of theatre norms; sitting in rows to watch the ‘action’ unfold, with no overt participation required. The set up of the space is integral in our understanding of how to behave and our perceptions of how to act to ‘fit in’ and be comfortable in the moment. Once the theatrical standards of passive audience and active performer were affirmed, the task of enforcing any heightened awareness or fear in the audience for ‘Red Beast’ was an uphill struggle in this non-verbal performance, if this was to be Spanton's intention. The Red Beast’s movements, which were small and limited to the platform - including the connections made with the audience through eye contact - would have made for a much more intimidating and immediate experience if the beast had free roam of the room and moved amongst the crowd. Spanton's decision to remain captive on the stage limited the audiences ability to interact or physically engage with the work and therefore encouraged spectators to 'watch' from arms length. Spanton in this way not only caged in the actions of the ‘beast’ of her creation, but simultaneously those of the audience.

These theatrical devices created a barrier, highlighting vulnerability in the work, or alternatively, vulnerability on the part of the performer. The devices removed Spanton from being the sole object of our attention and therefore worked as a protective mechanism for keeping a beastly audience at bay. The spectator was left at a loss to who was under scrutiny in this scenario and who truly needed protection from whom; as they were intimidated by the beasts provocative movement, yet simultaneously comforted in the knowledge that they could sit and observe, a safe distance from the performer, cushioned by familiar staging techniques.

The performers’ vulnerability in ‘Red Beast’ is easily countered by the vulnerability of the audience in attendance at Time & Tidal Flow, a festival in which both artist and audience take risks in work that is new and in flux, all the time proving that Live Art is still the provocative and vanguard art form of the 21st century, whether in Hull or anywhere else in the world.


This performance took place as part of Time & Tidal Flow a free festival of new work and Live Art from Hull Time Based Arts and New Work Yorkshire.


Joanna Loveday

Joanna Loveday is a writer based in Yorkshire, UK specialising in writing for performance and live art. www.joannaloveday.blogspot.com. Contact: joannaloveday@hotmail.com

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