With T.S. Eliot’s poem The Wasteland as a starting inspiration I joined some colleagues in London on an urban expedition in the form of a four day walk on the river Thames. It was sort of like ››Romania except the 2012 Olympic Games were going on.
Here’s an email excerpt from the initiator of the Wasteland Project Stephanie Bain 30 May 2012 describing the aim of the research:
“I want to challenge the concepts and the boundaries of what the expedition model – as conceived by Teatr Pieśń Kozła – can be. I’m asking is it possible to do an urban expedition? Is it possible to explore a familiar environment, but to see it with new eyes when looking at it as inspiration for performance making? On re-reading The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot, I was drawn to the dialogues of London that weave together mythological images and songs that flow through the city by focusing on the river Thames as a rich symbol for birth, for death, for the passing of time. I was inspired to work on The Wasteland as performance material and this source text opens up the idea of an expedition to the communities around London docklands; Greenwich and the Isle of Dogs.
…
The expedition would be a walk along the East London to Essex portion of the Thames Path. I’m going to finalise this route within the next week but it’s likely that we’ll start around Canary Wharf and walk through Greenwich and Docklands and out into Essex. The idea is to talk to people on houseboats, to talk to people in pubs, to perhaps arrange a meeting with the veteran dockers union, to talk to people at some small agricultural fairs on route (lots of weird and very English stuff!). I need to do some more research this week, but there are some campsites along the route and in an effort to save money/adhere to expedition ethos we would probably be camping. Then we get back and get into the Tunnels space for the R&D weeks. There’s some specific actor research that I want to explore in this phase, but that’s for later. This email is long enough already.”
To Carthage then I came
Burning burning burning burning
O Lord Thou pluckest me out
O Lord Thou pluckest
burning ~t.s. eliot
