Political Protests #4

Grandmothers Footsteps

After the mini premier of what we had so far, we all agreed that our piece needed some serious work. We took some inspiration from the workshop we had just had from the site specific group Gruff. In their workshop we looked at the simple game of Grandmother's Footsteps, how the dynamics and power was between the grandmother and the ones trying to reach her and what shapes and interactions occur between the large group of people. We took this because we all agreed that we needed stronger intentions and possibly make the piece into more of an experimental game. With grandmothers footsteps it shows that the mental health patients have a very clear intentions as the whole point of the game is that you strive to reach grandma. However, this would never fit into the context of face down restraint so we thought about what it is that the patients are striving for. Our conclusion was that they are striving  to be mentally well and to get the care that they need to achieve this. Therefore, they are striving for the support that should be in the mental health system, this support comes from doctors or therapists (workers) in medical practices.

This would form the bases of our piece, the patients are playing the game to reach the doctors, however they never really get there as they are repeatedly restrained by the same doctors who in turn send them back to the point they started from. What we liked about the use of grandmothers footsteps was that we all wanted to show that the people that this happens to are no difference form us. In childhood, for the majority, it is a time where everyone is the same as they have not yet learn't the behavior of excluding and other negative things. It is also a time where problems in mental health are not really an issue, commonly children as young as 4 or 5 don't often suffer from depression or other problems like that. Therefore, we have tried to revert everyone back to a time when people with mental health problems were no different to everyone else, and therefore demonstrate that face-down restraint is used on normal people and so if face-down restraint can happen to them then why would it wrong if someone tried to do to me in the street. What I also really liked about the game was that in that moment we, as the patients, became a collective with the rest of the participants.

The once we reached the 3 doctors each one would restrain one of us, while we struggle until we calm down after they have said 'I CAN'T LET GO OF YOU UNTIL YOU CALM DOWN'. This sentence came through just general play of being restrained, I think it was Eden who said it just naturally and we all agreed it was effective and so we used it. From this point we would get up and then go back to the start line.

It was a great place to be in but we all agreed that the game needed to be more dynamic, particularly from the patients as we were just walking forward. We also agreed that there needed to be more to the restraining as it was the center of our piece and that it needed to be clearer, as it could look a bit like police brutality.