Coping with the pandemic from the outside

Preparing for a Pandemic
The essence of the game was thus;

To participate in a physical role-playing game that imagines the outbreak of a life threatening disease in a fictional state, on a the fictional island of Orania ,having been quaratined.

In the workshop 627K hosted by the Showroom and artist Mieke Van der Voort the participants were young adults aged 13-16 from the local school, Quentin Kingston, who all had English as a second language and young people aged 17-21 from the Princes Trust programme.

Having read up about Mieke Van de Voorts last attempt at a similar workshop, the General States, which was filmed and shown at Casco projects, the role-playing game had came with a Manuel to help the players consider, whilst in character, what they may do in a real crisis situation. For instance in their different ‘states’ – psychological, ideological, intellectual, physical. The publication also gave some revealing information about various diseases and systems.This game was also performed by Art students.I was curious to see how this age group would cope with such a workshop and performance.

Getting to Know You
The time between the Church Street Festival and the workshop was spent prepering for the next few days but I also got to know the artist and the project coordinator a bit better , which I am very gratful for especially on the eve of the first day of the workshop.To have informal conversations with more established artists is a rare thing for me.Having just graduated from art school its always great to find out what paths other people in the arts have taken , and I feel more ambitious and confident in my ideas having had those discusseds those sorts of things.

On the first day of the workshop there was a new bunch of people to meet including the 2 participating groups (QK School and the princes trust). Meike and Emma began the day by revealing the blank map of Orania.Space was left blank on the paper so that the participants could imagine and mark down what they would want on the island, and where they would place themselves on the Island.It was thiers to share for the duration of the role playing work shop.

This was followed by some basic Ice breaker games coordinated by Howard Mathews ,an artist specialising in performance ,who provided the more theatrical instruction that was needed to play the game on day 2.

The group recouped and sat down to a lecture given by Deena Blumenkrantz, a scientist and PhD student at Imperial College specialising in Influenza.It was enough to frighten anyone , touching apon modern viral epedemics such as avian and swine flu.The audience was sort of lost in the academia until the huge amount of red grapes,oranges,blueberries and cocktail sticks came out , which where then used to make some very beautifully shape but deadly pathogenic viruses!

The following lecture given was by Dr. Carole Reeves ,an outreach historian for the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL).This was more desciptive of the physcological effect of what living with a virus can have ,in particular focusing on the questionable treatment of children at the sanitorium for  tuberulosis called Craig-y-nos, Wales.In modern medical institutions it is hard to believe that such cruelty was excepted for the 40 years the building was a sanatorium. 

Having rested our minds and let the participants 'have a breather', Howard began the first roleplaying workshop , I should probably mention that all specialists,Mieke,Emma and myself were physically involved with the workshops .The group was divided into 4 and each group was provided with a pile of trigger words so to described their character or thier character on the Island of Orania i.e Solitary , aggressive,calm.

This was followed by forming a circle and attempting to pass an emotion or expression around it e.i a smile or grimace.Personally I'm not sure of the success of this second exercise as even I felt it was hard to stay in character whilst looking at someone with disgust,when you bearly knew them yet.

Next  we practiced the 8 scales of dying, which was fun(1 being a sniffle 8 being death) .Howard began this exercise by falling down dead and maintaing this vulnerability quite well as the older boys dragged him across the floor and into comprimising positions.

this may have been the last part of the day for the participants but not for myself and the rest of the people supporting the project.The perfomance the next day was taking place in the cock pit theatre , that was located around the corner from the Showroom.We had to remove all the cushions and push the seating back (a bit of sweeping a mopping involved) to create more floor space for the performance.Then Mieke and Emma started working on the lighting , whilst theatre technicians dangled above us.

Lets play quarantine
Mieke and Emma worked on as long as they could and the next day we were greeted by a wonderful lighting arrangment and a map ,replicating the island of Orania , just as it was the day before, marked out on the floor with white tape ,with labels for particular areas like MAYORS HOUSE,POLICE STATION,FOREST etc.It looked so effective on the black floor , like an alternative playground and in complete contrast to yesterdays, smaller and  almost sterile enviroment in The Showroom Gallery.Myself and Carol , the Historian finished some lettering off!

The group today seemed far more comfortable with each other and I don't  think it was just the different environment.We began with some ice breaking exercises again like passing a smile around the circle except this time it was more for the purposes of testing actions you would make if you were suffering from this imaginary virus.For instance; the first stage of the virus is a wink .The second,combinging that with a dead limb.The third,combinging them whilst moving in slow-motion.Then the fourth , a relatively fast drop to the floor to indicate death.We also did some simple exercises like picking a random person A and random person B,You must want to be near A without letting them know.You must want to avoid B without letting them know.Then a trust game, when you egt in pairs and one leads the other whi has there eyes closed.

Strangely enough ,this is the first time when the exercises were questioned by one of the older boys.He didn't see the point in the exercise.

As a side, there was a space in the theatre set up behind a big black curtain that could be used as a video diary room , so people could go and discuss how they felt about the situation on the fictional island in private and whilst in character.

After a break Mieke presented different roles and descriptions for everyone , some more major than others.I chose to be a solitary person , so seperated myself from most of the community.We gave a test performance to familiarise ourselves with various props and to find a space appropriate from our character.

Then the real thing was filmed.I didn't have too much to go on in my role , so I also decided that I was the oldest person living on the Island , and that I only visited the pub, but not to socialise, I also lived in the woods, and was some what hermit like.But both times I became susepable to the virus , through various desperate attempts to find food.In the end I also became so delirious with the virua I decided not to take the antidote but turn to religion.I saved it until I felt someone worthy of living could have it, I died soon after this.The space was really chaotic with loads of stories happening at the same time , and some really horrific things occured ,like chucking the dead into the sea,if you could imagine this situation was real.Everyone seemed to remain in character very well.

Afterwards it seemed the game really peeked the groups interest and there was a really good discussion about how we all felt it went , and compared the imagined scenerios to what might happen in real life pandemic situations.