Interview with Lillian Ross-Millard on her experimental, devising workshops.

Documentation from the Real Food Residency curated by Laura van der Tas.

July 26th-27th 2019, five Glasgow-based performance artists were invited to lead and participate in a series of workshops where they shared their respective practices.

Videography by Siyao Li.

Participants: Wei Zhang, Martina Morger, Gemma Jones, Rosa Farber, and Laura van der Tas.

TRANSCRIPT:

Lillian: When you present a clear structure it’s quite easy and approachable for people because it’s just something concrete to work against. What I find makes me anxious is open structure, because when you have open structure you have to improvise and there’s this formlessness. It’s like thinking about pathways or aporias. I don’t know a way forward but when you’re in a narrow space with constraint–it’s like your identity is in the constraint or in the pathway, and it’s clear your direction. It’s like–what’s the word–it’s like a chemical reaction. It’s you and the rule. I find people let their guard down a little bit in structured situations. I certainly do. I certainly do let my guard down in structured situations. It’s when I have fun.

It’s to give direction but it’s also to give something to rebel against. I often think about it in terms of a small community or small municipality with its own set of rules. And that gives a kind of potency to your engagement with this set of rules. You could break the rules, or you could be the best at the rules. Then there are all these dynamics and relationships that are born out of that. I find it a fun scenario to create in.

I’m still trying to figure it out. Because it’s a theatre practice, right? But I’m learning more and more about performance art. Often performance artists use theatre as way of defining what performance art is. You know? It’s like “performance art isn’t theatre”, or “it’s not acting” or “it’s not character”. But I think there are these ways in which this practice plays a boundary between the two. You have to be receptive to being surprised. So like creating space or creating structure or avenues to be surprised, and for people to put things into it. And the more you work with a group of people the more avenues and the more chance for spontaneity with occur. You become good at sculpting that.

I was leading this session right now, but you might find a way of working together and then you pass the hat to someone else. It’s like a rotational leadership.

The thing I did want was a certain quality to the event which we were talking about at the beginning of the year with our film devising workshop. It’s like, “What is this? Is it a workshop? Is it a performance? What is this? Am I just an artist working on my own stuff here? What is the activity exactly? Where does it lie on the spectrum between work and art?”