Tripping the Light Fantastic - KMA’s Congregation

Friday night (10th September) saw the launch of Inside Out, and the European premiere of KMA’s Congregation (curated by Bournemouth-based SCAN).

This installation started just after 8pm, when it was dark enough for us to see the light projected onto the town square. You could see an illuminated area in the middle of the square, a large blue crane on which was mounted the light source and a viewing screen mounted on a nearby department store.

Initially too many people were crowded into the square staring at the screen so the piece didn’t seem to work successfully. However, slowly, as people started to thin out it became clear that you could affect the light, and the states which it moved through. Then it became incredibly interesting. As the light moved round the space and through its cycle you found how you could influence it. You might be in a single spotlight and that spot would follow you round the square, or you might be able to make a trace of your body’s thermal image on the ground.

The accompanying music, played through a powerful sound system, was scored by the Portland-based musician and composer Peter Broderick (Oregon, USA, not Portland, Dorset!). Part orchestral percussive and part trance, its ethereal quality seemed to help the magical texture of the work.

There were some fascinating social interactions going on. Just before 11pm, a man – probably in his late 20s – took charge and started to suggest ways the group could make shapes which then became thermal imprints on the ground and screen. At his suggestion around 25 strangers held hands in a circle and all lunged with one foot to the middle, then lay on the floor and made a smiley face. One couple said they’d been married the previous week so we made a heart shape, which, once achieved, led to a huge round of applause and total group euphoria. The man who’d been suggesting the ideas then exclaimed “I just want life to always be like this.”

I think that Congregation unlocked a very childlike sense of play in people, and it reminded me of drama games you might use when in theatre rehearsals – there was a marvellous sense of being able to suspend your inhibitions as something so extraordinary was happening. As my Dad said to my Mum as he watched me bobbing in and out of beams, “it’s like watching Lorna aged 6.”

The viewing screen allowed you, the performer, to watch yourself, mediated by a screen, performing. Thus you are audience, participant, performer, and viewer all at once. Many of us use social networking constructs such as Facebook, or blog sites like this one; these platforms inhabit the virtual realm and we define their content. In using and performing in Congregation we have a platform which physically sets the stage for our interactions and we, as with Facebook, get to create what happens – if we don’t we just see a few pretty patterns of light on the marble floor tiles. There is something really fascinating to me about the way this piece is playing with notions of user-defined content which make this piece beyond theatre or dance into an ‘extraordinary event’.

Many people stayed for at least three or four cycles (each cycle is about 25 minutes in length), as they were so involved in ‘working out’ the game. Some (including myself) stayed for hours, finding new ways of moving with the light and with other people.

I would absolutely encourage anyone to get down to Bournemouth Town Square (the installation is on until Sunday 19th September) as it’s truly a beautiful piece of work.