make-shift is a unique and intimate networked performance that speaks about the fragile connectivity of human and ecological relationships. Devised by Paula Crutchlow (Devon based performer and director) and Helen Varley Jamieson (NZ writer and cyberformer) the performance takes place simultaneously in two separate houses that are connected through a specially designed online interface.
Paula and Helen (one in each house) stage their part of the work with the help of a group of around 15 local audience members. Scripted and visually poetic performance is interspersed with webcam videography, avatar puppetry and audience interaction in the format of a performative salon. Everything that happens in the houses is streamed to online audiences who can also contribute text chat visible on the interface to everyone throughout the event.
make-shift is an ecologically aware house party with a difference. As well as experiencing the intimacy, viscerality and shared experience of a live performance event; local and online audiences participate in a call-and-response between people, landscape and culture to discuss the theme of 'disposability' in its broadest sense.
More information, including photos from performances, can be found on their website here.
"When I was growing up and something important got sucked up the hoover, my mum could be persuaded to get a piece of newspaper, unfold it on the floor and empty the cloth bag to try and find the missing thing. I don't do that. Barbie shoes, fuzzy felt animals, bits of lego that are really important parts of a helicopter, multi-coloured beads from broken bracelets. I don't care. Up into the hoover it goes and away with it. To somewhere else. Outside my home. To where I can't see it anymore."
make-shift was originally commissioned by Beaford Arts and made with the support of a residency at Furtherfield.org and funding from Arts Council England.