BLOG 4: Alison S. M. Kobayashi // SAY SOMETHING BUNNY

The use of the wire recorder, a now obsolete form of audio technology that used steel wire for magnetic recordings gave the performance an authentic touch. By using this method, everything felt closer to the reality of what occurred in the past. Say Something Bunny! plays with what true memory is, preserving narrative details from source material and fictionalizing the rest.

Created by Alison S. M. Kobayashi, Say Something Bunny! is an archaeological dig into the lives of a family from Woodmere, New York. The performance focuses on listening to this audio recording together, assisted by a transcription of the audio recording. Throughout, listeners can take pauses where insights, footnotes, interpretations, characterizations, discoveries, and revelations are shared with the audience. We follow the transcript, but we also become the people that we're listening to. It’s fiction and non-fiction. It’s using archives but also an active imagination by interpreting deeper meanings. 

In creative contexts, in particular performances like this one, the audience is claiming its own important part. The audience can think with the makers about which topics will be staged, and is talked to as dialogue partner. This presentation is an example of how performance can create an arena for discussing important societal topics. Because while participating in performances, the spectators are encouraged to create their own individual stories, based on their previous experiences, their unique positions in the world. Kobayashi does not intend to force her perspective on the audience, rather she provides spectators with possible perspectives. Ideas are given to the viewers, who can use these for creating their own opinion on the topics presented on stage, but also in their lives outside the framed performance.