Save Me: A Conversation Across The City

For two hours each day, for eleven days during Mayfest 2011, Bristol-based performance duo, Search Party, spoke to each other across Bristol Harbour using semaphore. Arnolfini is now working with Mayfest and Theatre Bristol to publish and launch a new book with Saearch Party and The University of Chichester about how a simple act of performance in May became to represent the struggles of distant connection.

Join us on Saturday 22nd October 6.30pm at Arnolfini for the launch night of the publication, a performance from Search Party and hear the artist share a few thoughts on the acts of coding and decoding that occur within daily acts of communication.

"Such a Rich and Moving Dialogue without one Word being Uttered"

Exeunt have reviewed Mayfest 2011 as a whole here, with particular praise for Save Me and The Blind Tiger.

Patch Things Up, Make Amends, Our Hearts are still Beating

Finally Search Party's semaphone marathon, Save Me, has reached its conclusion. For 2 hours for 10 days Pete and Jodie stood at either end of a portion of Bristol's Floating Harbour squinting at eachother in a painstakingly slow but utterly captivating and beautiful conversation. Between the 5th and 15th of May some of the topics discussed without one word being uttered were seperated twins, messages in bottles, long-distance telephone calls, the wind, home, and the Apollo 11 astronaunt Michael Collins. Below you can read exactly what was communicated via semaphone during Mayfest (click on each chalk board image to enlarge):

Monday 9th

Tuesday 10th

"You Can't Help but Smile"

Guardian have reviewed Save Me in the Bristol Harbourside here.

Distance makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Five days in and the sumptuous Save Me is captivating Bristol audiences. Don't forget to get yourself down to the city centre fountains this week between 11am and 1pm to engage with and enjoy this beautiful celebration of communitcation.

Here's what Search Party's Pete and Jodie have been saying so far through semaphore (click on the chalkboard images to enlarge).

Thursday 5th

Friday 6th

Venue's Top Mayfest Picks

Save Me - Harbourside (Thur 5-Sun 15)
• Every Mayfest boasts one or two stand-out, off-the-wall delights – shows boasting Herculean staging demands (like last year’s ‘Electric Hotel’) or promising to subtly alter the emotional co-ordinates of all who see it (see last year, again, and the emotional, intimate ‘Internal’). This year’s eye-catcher is ‘Save Me’, a semaphore soap opera performed, using giant flags, by Bristol performance duo Search Party. Performers Pete Phillips and Jodie Hawkes will converse over 11 days using the flag semaphore system, building up a narrative over time: audiences, bystanders, commuters and city strollers are invited to get involved and steer the story. “Often the audience try to manipulate the piece into a love story, offering advice on how we should make up or hold out for an apology,” says Pete, reflecting on past performances, including a session on London’s South Bank. “The mood is always very hopeful – the audience are willing the connection to succeed.” SP will spend Mayfest on the Floating Harbour – Pete at Cascade Steps, Jodie on Pero’s Bridge – and will invite audiences and passers-by to decode messages and send their own. “You can engage with the performance in various ways – visually it’s quite arresting, which makes a nice contrast with the often day-to-day nature of the conversation.” Pete recommends returning to the piece often over its 11-day run, to engage with its distinctive rolling narrative. Audiences are also invited to leave their own stories of when they have been apart from someone. “We provide tags and pens for people to leave their own stories as a memorial to the people they miss, which we’ll weave into the dialogue.”

Meet the Mayfest Crew: Chris Swain

What is your job at Mayfest?
Production Manager


Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year's Mayfest?
I Guess If The Stage Exploded... - A performance that is IMPOSSIBLE to forget sounds like a challenge. I'm excited to see how it is tackled.
The Ice Book - Gorgeous looking mini-show, part pop-up book, part film, part live performance.
Save Me - Where would a festival be without a semaphore soap opera?

I love Mayfest because…
It brings performers and companies to Bristol that are experimental, daring and exciting. And you get to dive in for two weeks and experience the true festival vibe of seeing loads of great stuff packed into a short space of time.

Sum up Mayfest in 3 shiny words.
Festival in May?  Hectic Theatrical Bonanza!

Using Flags instead of Spoken Word

Save Me is a two handed durational performance in public space. Two performers communicate over a long distance using semaphore flags. The conversation is improvised and documented on large boards. Passers by help de-code messages and draft responses, dipping in and out of this accumulative soap opera, going about their daily lives as the narrative unfolds around them. Save Me can also be performed at night, using high-powered nautical searchlights and morse code.

Save Me playfully challenges the boundaries of intimacy. Using flags instead of spoken words, this rolling and improvised narrative communicates across the city, exposing stories that are hidden, encoded, that simmer beneath the surface. Search Party de-code their intimate exchange of apologies, secrets, half-truths, veiled threats and warnings and inscribe these words on the surface of the city, exposing what is too often left unsaid.

The performance disrupts the familiar act of domestic conversation through physical distance and the codified language of semaphore. This method of encoded dialogue strips away the layers of intuition, physical nuance and telepathy from our discourse leaving gaps between the words we send, gaps filled by miscommunication and misunderstanding. The conversation is documented and inscribed in a public place leaving a physical trace of the imagined narrative created throughout the length of the performance.

Action Hero’s Top Mayfest Picks

James Stenhouse is one half of Action Hero, a Bristol-based live art and performance duo who, since 2005, have been creating work that links audiences together and unifies them as part of the live event, building a temporary community.


Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year’s Mayfest?

Operation Greenfield - Little Bulb's work is amazing. They are ridiculously talented and this show is extraordinary.

Save Me - I'm biased cos they're my best buddies but this is a beautiful piece. It works best if you dip in and out over the course of the festival (it’s free!) or over the course of a few hours. From a very simple action there is a really amazing depth of ideas and feeling. Love it.

The Blind Tiger - I occasionally find the theatre a bit of an inconvenient barrier between me and a night of merry drinking so I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to combine the two this year. I also love art/music/performance that is rough and ready, slightly shoddy and spontaneous so The Blind Tiger really appeals to me.

Tinned Fingers’ Mayfest Top Picks

Tinned Fingers are a group of artists with backgrounds in writing, theatre and visual arts who work collaboratively to create experimental live performance and interactive events. They work with a DIY aesthetic, inspired by the possibilities of making a performance in your living room and embracing the economy, satisfaction and inherent optimism of re-using everyday materials. Tinned Fingers are members of Residence, an artist led space creating space to make theatre and live art in Bristol and they performed at Mayfest 2009 and 2010.

Tinned Fingers are performing a work-in-progress version of their latest project, The Last Romance Club Ever, as part of Junction Sampled: Festival of Performance in Cambridge over the bank holiday weekend.

“We are hopeful. We are looking for love. We want to get lucky. We want to serenade you outside your window at night. We want to give you our last rolo. We can’t sing but, for you, we’ll try.”

Which 3 shows are you most looking forward to at this year’s Mayfest?

The Ice Book: I saw this at the Dartington College of Arts Alumni Festival last year and thought it was very beautiful. A tiny, miniature story that comes to life like a living pop up book.

Save Me: I'm really excited to see how this unfolds over the course of the festival - Search Party’s last piece, Growing Old With You, is one of my favourite performances that I’ve ever seen. Knowing Search Party, I'd expect this new work to be just as considered, poignant and playful.

Fortnight: I've just signed up for this today, looking forward to some magical things to start happening...!

Save Me

Search Party
11am, Thursday 5th until Sunday 15th May 2011 @ The Floating Harbour

An intimate conversation between two people, stretched across the city, situated up to 500m apart. For two hours a day for the duration of Mayfest, Search Party will create a live semaphore soap opera for Bristol. Using giant flags instead of spoken words, this rolling and improvised narrative will communicate playfully across the city’s landscape, exposing stories that are hidden and encoded, that simmer beneath the surface.

Search Party decipher their intimate exchange of secrets, half-truths, veiled threats and warnings; documenting the conversation as it unveils and revealing what is too often left unsaid. As passers by you will be called upon to help translate the messages and draft responses as you dip in and out of this unique soap opera; unravelling a narrative as you go about your daily lives. Find them. They need you.

Bristol-based company Search Party have toured internationally with their inspired site-specific performance Search Party vs. We’re delighted to be co-comissioning this new work with Theatre Bristol.