We sat down for a quick chat with Ellie Higgins about her latest project, The Best Of, an immersive audio experience exploring music, memory and grief.
How does it feel to bring The Best Of to London and share such a personal piece with a new audience?
I’m incredibly excited to be performing as part of Camden People’s Theatre’s Sprint Festival! It will be my London debut and I cannot wait to meet new audiences and artists alike! The Best Of is a personal piece as it explores my own relationship with grief, but I’m hoping it can connect and resonate with many people as we all experience grief in a variety of forms. As it’s still a work in progress I hope to receive plenty of feedback and find out what London audiences make of it.
How did your own experiences with grief and memory shape the creative process of this show?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a terrible memory. I’ve always relied on my sister to narrate stories of our childhood, tell me the funny things we did or more often the mean things I said to her. When my Dad passed away very suddenly I immediately began worrying that I would forget everything about him. In an attempt to stop this, I began writing down some specific good memories that easily came to mind. As time went on, I kept remembering those specific things I’d written down which made me even more terrified that I’d forgotten the rest.
I’ve always wanted to explore themes of memory and loss through performance, but it wasn’t until my master’s that the idea came to me. We were focusing on using personal belongings as stimuli and I had these CDs of my Dad’s, loads of greatest hits and best of albums. From there I began reflecting on how we look back on the past and remember.
As for the creative process, I’m always very focused on the overall concepts, symbolism and research. I’ve spent a lot of time learning about how audio memory stores in the human brain, comparing this to digital memory stores on CD as well as researching into the relationship between music and memory. The performance contains some of my own experiences and thoughts, but I wanted to create something which has a lot of space for the audience to question and reflect on their own understandings of memory and grief.
Of course, it can naturally be upsetting to work on such a personal project, so I just have to really ask myself what I’m comfortable doing and what might be cutting too close. I must also thank my tutor Michael Pinchbeck who has given great support and guidance throughout the project.
The show is described as an “audio experience for one”—what unique challenges and opportunities does this format present compared to traditional theatre?
One-to-one performance is such an exciting form which isn’t played with often enough. It aims toward an intimacy that can’t be reached in traditional theatre, but at its core it’s just two people sharing a moment together. My work is heavily inspired by Adrian Howells, his work was so experimental while showing so much care for his audience. I have a big interest in mediatised performance, in response to how digital our lives have become. In this performance I’m playing with ideas around intimacy and separation through the use of audio and physical space.
In terms of staging I think it’s far easier to be experimental in one-to-one, as playing with space, time or audience involvement becomes more complex on a larger scale. However, one of the biggest challenges is encouraging people to come along. Being the only audience member isn’t something we’re used to and can be very daunting. I’m hoping The Best Of will be a gentle introduction to the form, as this performance invites the audience to sit comfortably and listen to a CD.
Music plays a central role in The Best Of—how did you select the tracks, and do they hold personal significance for you?
The tracks on the CD are all named after songs which bring back special memories. However, the audience doesn’t actually hear the music – the tracks are a collection of short stories, research and thoughts that I’ve written. I chose the title songs dependent on what tone I’m hoping the track holds, if it’s a sincere moment, silly or somewhere in-between.
If you could give The Best Of as a mixtape to any historical figure, who would it be and why?
I think it’d give it to the person who invented CDs. I’d love to know their thoughts.
Ticket link – https://cptheatre.co.uk/whatson/The-Best-Of
[…] her interview with A Youngish Perspective, Higgins discusses the development of the project after the sudden […]