Everything in my piece has to have a meaning, from the lighting to the oufit i wear. I’m not going to wear a ‘Costume’ as such as my piece is autobiographical, i am playing me, not a character. I want to keep it casual and light-hearted, like the tone of my piece. I take the negatives and try make jokes as that is my way of dealing with living with diabetes. From my idea of actually skyping my performance/ using videos i thought it could be clever if on the screens there was a loading sign- firstly my body is always having to re-charge itself and load up/ adjust its setting and secondly the symbol for type 1 diabetes is in fact a blue circle. Therefore, a  blue loading circle on a screen could be used. Then when the screen finally loads it could say “powered by insulin” . T-shirt wise i did think about designing a football tshirt with the number 1 on the back so the front would say diabetic, then the back name would say “Type” then a large 1. However, i am drawn to the carbs t-shirt as it is in fashion and people wear it thinking it’s funny or in fact they have no idea why they bought it. If i wore it, it would create a whole new different meaning, and as i want the audience to understand it is not just sugar that affects me, it is carbohydrates which play the main part in my daily lifestyle.

Sugar Sugar by the Archies “you are my candy girl” is a very catchy song about sugar which i think would work well as the audience enter, as it repetitively sings about sugar and honey, things that are very sweet which is the majority of the Public’s pre conceptions that diabetes is purely caused by eating too much sugar.  This video is funny as it shows that having too much sugar can metaphorically “beat you up”, destroying your body, however i don’t want people to remember a cartoon boy getting beaten up by a can of coke, yes i get bruises but that’s from injecting to try stop sugary foods and drinks affecting me.

I need it now
When I’m without you
I’m something weak

And it’s killing me when you’re away, ooh, baby,

Make it alright
Need a little sweetness in my life

My broken pieces
You pick them up
Don’t leave me hanging, hanging
Come give me some
When I’m without ya
I’m so insecure
You are the one thing, one thing
I’m living for

“Let them go, all the one’s tryna get in the door
I’mma go where they all couldn’t go
Up a floor, up a floor, up a floor, oh”

Repetition of the word levels sticks in my head. To do- make a mash up of songs that relate to levels, sugar, Nick Jonas also wrote a song about his Pancreas as he’s also type 1 diabetic. However, it’s a little too cheesey for my liking, i prefer to use not so obvious things, although saying that i do like the idea of juxtaposing people’s pre conceptions about not being allowed to eat sugar- and then playing the song “sugar, sugar, you are my candy girl” at the beginning of my piece to set the tone.

“All of us have that moment where puttin’ the shit on us is the best choice we have.” (Finley, cited in Potier, 2002)

From looking at the eating disorders of Winnie The Pooh and friends, Karen Finley then took the idea of honey and using visual art she smeared her body with the food. I think this is very impacting visually and has a lot of meaning behind it. If I were to just sit and talk about what it’s like to have diabetes I feel like the audience would become bored and therefore I think if I show what it is like rather than just talk it will be more engaging and memorable. Seeing and hearing something at the same time like Laurie Anderson suggests, plays with the senses. Like her use of microphone distortions and the repetitions of certain words, phrases or dialogue I want to create interesting visuals and text together.

Like the 21st century slogan “eat. sleep. rave. repeat.” I want to repeat “Blood test. Carb count. inject. eat.” I think this is catchy and also sums up my daily repetition, through repetition of the script.

“Imagine carb counting every time you eat. Going out for a meal and not knowing how many carbs are in what you’ve ordered as there’s no packet to look at. Or what if you then order desert and you’ve already injected.

Re-test. Re-count. Re-guess. Re-inject.” (Baillie, 2016)

The idea of food onstage I think would work in the opening of my piece- as the audience enter I will place sweets into a jar. This will represent the constant counting of carbs and the resistance of eating the sugary foods. But also challenge the audience’s pre conceptions that diabetics  can’t eat sugar at all… as half way through my piece I want to then show myself “Blood test. Carb Count. Inject. eat. ” By eating jelly babies on stage instead of my initial thought of I’ll eat an alpen light bar (as the packing is easy to read and carb count from the box) I thought this may confuse the audience to them thinking I have to eat low fat things (when in fact I just like alpen light bars). So jelly babies would have more of an inpact- like Karen Finely I need to do something that stands out. I feel injecting myself on stage will definitely have that shock factor.

“food has also been used as a prop in displaying the intrusion and penetration that the characters experience in the form of a visual abuse to the body.” (Finley, cited in Holmes, 2012)

Holmes, L. (2012). Progress Through Provocations: Analyzing the Work of Karen Finley. [online] CUJAH. Available at: http://cujah.org/past-volumes/volume-iii/essay-3-volume-3/ [Accessed 2 May 2016].

Potier, B. (2002). Harvard Gazette: Karen Finley provokes, reveals in lecture. [online] News.harvard.edu. Available from: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2002/02.14/06-finley.html [accessed 2 May 2016].

I want The start of my show to be colourful and cabaret style as I want the atmosphere of the piece to change as the performance develops. After thinking about the idea that my pancreas is like a door it doesn’t let insulin out to break down glucose, I don’t have the right hormones to enter the ‘locks’. I thought about instead of having a hanging curtain like in a cabaret, to have a simple door frame with hanging beads.

This may confuse the audience though as it would be quite ambiguous. I would only enter through it at the beginning dramatically and then not enter or leave through it again. As much as I think this is quite a clever idea I also think why put a door frame in the middle of the stage. I want more of an impacting stage. I am going to be using lights anyway as a major part of my piece and I want projections. However, because I want to set up objects in the space if I have TV’s in the space I feel this would look odd. So I am going to use the giant projection screen at the back and reveal it from behind the curtains. It will then act as almost a back drop. I can also shine the lights onto the black curtain to create the cabaret style effect.

Due to living around 145 miles which works out at around 2 and half hours, away from the most important people in my life, who gave me life- my parents. I couldn’t record my mum’s voice personally and ask her questions about what it is like living with a daughter who has had type 1 diabetes since the age of 6. It must be hard for a parent having to learn about a condition that they never thought they’d have to deal with, especially my parents as no one in my family has ever had type 1 diabetes (which is strange to tell people as type 1 is genetic). As I’ve become more independent and moved away from home to university my parents have to put complete trust in me to cope myself and keep my health in check. Obviously my mum texts me most days to see how i am and if i have any health problems i tell her for example if she asks how my day’s been and i respond by saying I’ve been asleep most of the day due to having high blood glucose levels. As well as having her on the phone to the Ipswich diabetes centre team like in January when i was waking up hypo every morning, my mum was scared for my health and I nearly had to go home just so she could look after me and not have to worry i may fall hypo in the night and not wake up. It can be scary. Due to my parents also not being able to come watch my performance at 9.30am on May 17th i want to in some way include them in my piece, as i have been interested in different people’s perceptions. So i asked my mum to sum up how it feels to be a parent with a daughter with type 1 diabetes…

 Living with a diabetic daughter

 From being an active child to struggling to walk home everyday from primary school, to going on diabetic camps where i learnt that i’m not alone and there are many others who have the same ‘condition’ as me, in a way being diabetic has made me who i am and with time my confidence has grown and not stopped me doing what i love- performing.

These are photos that represent that having type 1 diabetes does not stop you living your life- i have written a 9000 word dissertation (and hopefully will gain a degree in drama), i’ve performed in the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for a whole month, Peter Pan an intensive Christmas show for a whole month and many many other shows!!!!!!!! Yes i go through lots of struggles but this is why i want my final degree performance to teach people about type 1 diabetes as it is another part of me that no one understands (and if i have a future career in the performing arts industry, performers along side me should probably know what to do if i was to collapse, which luckily has never happened in all the years i’ve performed)