Paris Morgue

Our Forensics: Anatomy of Crime exhibition closes on 21 June 2015. The show is split into five sections, one of which is “the morgue”. The modern morgue, or mortuary, was established as a dedicated building in the 19th century. Taryn Cain tells us about La Morgue, an unlikely public attraction in 1800s Paris.

If you were visiting Paris today, you’d probably find yourself walking past the Love Padlocks on the Pont des Arts, walking through Notre Dame and a mile on from there you’d be at the Louvre. If you were in Paris in the 1880s, there would be an altogether different attraction that you would almost certainly have found yourself in. The “only free theatre in Paris”, otherwise known as the La Morgue.

The morgue first opened its doors to the public in 1804 on Ile de la Cite, before moving to a new and larger building behind Notre Dame in 1864, where a memorial now sits. The location of the morgue was no accident: being in the epicentre of Paris and right next to the Seine, the morgue was in a good position to receive both the dead and the living. Many of the bodies, which were picked up off the streets or fished out of the Seine, were unidentifiable, so the public were ostensibly allowed in to help with their identification.

Street vendors on the Seine in Paris.

Bodily Possibilities Workshop

It isn’t often on a Sunday morning that you see twelve people, old and young, roll across the floor and find new expressions within their own bodies. It is this kind of event that makes Wellcome Collection so unique, fusing ideas of science and art with the body. Kate Gosling was one of those people and discusses what was involved.

The workshop (part of a series of events accompanying Foreign Bodies, Common Ground), led by Nana Dakin and Kage, evolved from the residency of B-Floor Theatre at the Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Tropical Medicine Research Programme in Bangkok, Thailand. The residency explored research into malaria and other tropical diseases, and the parasites and other illness-giving agents that can take over our body and cause it to react and change in a way that might be completely new to us. The ideas of these bodily possibilities, which originate when we are well and when we are ill, used ideas of movement to bring these ideas to life.

Kage showed the group how to move their stomachs around like there was ‘a worm’ or a disease in them. He talked them through this new sensation, making it seem real to them through the dialogue and story he presented. It was new to them, this disease, they had never felt it before, and then it started moving all around their body and making different parts of them twitch in different ways. Eventually it hit their brains and their face. The ideas of cerebral malaria came to mind in what went from a gentle mime to one that gave terrifying fit-like movements. Eventually, although it was not explicit, Kage asked that everyone imagine they held it in their cheeks, thousands of these ‘worms’, and then spat them out. And he said, “Well done, you are all healthy again”. They had been through an illness without being ill. Could they connect with some of this feeling of being well again on a cellular level?

Creation ideas and ideas linked with evolution followed. Kage had a powerful way of presenting movement through the idea of becoming other animals. Everyone was crawling on the floor like an amoeba, a one-cell creation. Nana and Kage started everyone playing rock, paper, and scissors. When you won you evolved into multi-cellular animals, and everyone went from amoeba to worm, frog, monkey and human in a game that playfully followed in Charles Darwin’s footsteps! I thought it was funny that people seemed to have a sense of pride in becoming human and staying human. Although one woman said that the workshop had helped her feel closer to all living species.

The second part of the workshop used objects: tools as an extension of our bodies and us. The participants were given objects and Kage asked them: if you were a cellular body other than a human, how would you interact with this object? Some had colourful hula hoop pipes that could spiral into a DNA-style helix; others had balloons, scarves, jumpers and plastic bags. One of the bags is featured in a video currently showing in our Foreign Bodies, Common Ground exhibition.

In sets of between two and four, participants who had only known each other a few hours performed together for the others, showcasing their new movements and the new bodily possibilities that they had created and found within themselves. There was lots of humour as well as serious elements and everyone seemed to work well together without self-consciousness.

I asked Nana what B-Floor might be doing next. She said that they hoped to continue this kind of workshops because the time they had on the residency had been a real journey. The success of their workshop was evident and many of the participants asked if we were repeating this type of event.

In terms of the bigger picture revealed within Foreign Bodies, Nana expresses the idea of research and the implications within the community as “zooming in and zooming out”. That phrase really appeals to me. She says a big theme in B-Floor is the sense of examining tiny things under a microscope and also looking at the larger social and political impact.

Nana says: “we want to know how it works. Why is it that way? How does it connect to these circumstances, these structures, these environments, these people? And how can I explain this to someone else? How can I convince them that it is valid? We gather information, we make conclusions, we make hypotheses and we ask more questions. We wonder if our work will have an impact; will it change the lives of people around us? Will it alter the lives of those who come after us? We zoom in and we zoom out.”

Foreign Bodies, Common Ground has been extended to 16th March 2014.

Kate Gosling is a Visitor Services Assistant at Wellcome Collection.

What’s in your medicine cabinet?

Side Effects. Photo: Justin Jones

Side Effects is a dance-theatre production by dANTE OR dIE that playfully explores society’s relationship with medicine. Working with a cast of dancers between the ages of 20 and 75, the show dips in and out of daily routines magnifying the significance and effects of tablets, creams and prescriptions and on our lives and relationships. Terry O’Donovan explains more.

In the summer of 2009, my colleague Daphna Attias (the director of the piece) and I saw the exhibition ‘Cradle to Grave‘ at the British Museum by the Pharmacopeia collective. We were intrigued and amazed by the amount of medicine an average UK citizen will take in a lifetime (approximately 14,000 pills). We began researching the theme in terms of the theatrical and choreographic possibilities using performers’ medical diaries. Betsy Field, a dancer in her 70s who used to be a pharmacist, joined us as a performer along with researchers from The School of Pharmacy interested in looking at issues facing social pharmacy being explored through dance. Dr Ian Banks and Professor Laura Obiols have been working with the company over the past year fuelling us with knowledge in exploratory meetings, and being hands on in rehearsals to help shape the content of the performances.

Using elements including Betsy’s childhood memory of being put to sleep with chloroform and dreaming of soldiers chasing her, and embarrassing medicine such as cream for pubic lice we created a twenty-minute performance entitled Initial Side Effects. This was performed at The Linbury Studio at the Royal Opera House and The Place, London. Concurrently, we began a workshop programme with older people exploring their experience and relationship to medicine that mirrored our creative process.

We are now in rehearsals for the full production, Side Effects, for which we have assembled a fascinating mixture of people whose lives are influenced by medicine. Mark Down, our dramaturge, was a GP before he gave it up to work as a performer and theatre director. Obiols is actually training in dance at The Place whilst Susie Freeman from Pharmacopeia has been sharing her artistic experience of working with medicine throughout our process.

We have moved on from personal histories and have used a family to investigate the dramatic possibilities of medicine at different ages in our lives. Scenes are inspired by the continued use of ‘The Pill’, treatment for the menopause, and insomnia. It is integral to the work of dANTE OR dIE to find the emotional response of people within the work we create. This has informed the choice of our title for the piece –the psychological and emotive side effects of taking medicine are put centre-stage for the performance, which promises to send you home to have a look in your own medicine cabinet, and consider how you have been affected by pills.

You can see Side Effects in London at Rich Mix from 10-13 February and at the Laban Theatre on 1 March. There are also performances at The School of Pharmacy on 17 February (performance for students and staff at the school and members of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society: email info@danteordie.com for tickets) and Sadler’s Wells (performance open to members of Sadler’s Wells Arts Club).

Terry O’Donovan is Associate Director of dANTE OR dIE Theatre and a performer in the production.

Side Effects is funded by a Wellcome Trust Arts Award and Arts Council England. It is a collaboration between dANTE OR dIE and The School of Pharmacy, with support from The Royal Pharmaceutical Society.

Pressure Drop: Underneath the Arches

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In the second of our two clips from the Pressure Drop rehearsals, Nana (played by June Watson) and Ron (Pip Donaghy) share a musical moment in the church.

Pressure Drop: Reunited at the Brit

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In this first of two clips from the Pressure Drop rehearsals, John (played by Justin Salinger) is reunited with his brother Jack (Michael Gould) and old friend Tony (David Kennedy) at the Brit pub, as they reminisce about the old days.