[sudden footsteps]
[swallowing glugs, as Calvin drinks his water]
[Calvin sniffs]
[then exhales]
Hey.
Hi.
Erm, my name is Calvin - Calvin Z. Laing.
Um, 33 years old.
And this is not a dating app.
[Laughing] That's what it feels like...
Erm.
[bright, slow, rising organ chords]
[note sustains]
I was brought up in Drylaw, in the suburbs of Edinburgh.
It's Edinburgh north area.
I went to Edinburgh College of Art and studied sculpture
but erm, I realised there's a lot of limitations to this way of working.
Apart from when your tutors would tell you to make your sculptures
larger or bigger, erm, it didn't quite do it for me.
I felt like it was quite limited
so therefore I decided to move much more into performance.
Calvin & Back In The Gym.
Intro.
Yes, indeed, as suggested by the title
I am here, back in the gym
as of January 2022.
Dry January.
A frugal January.
A healthy January
and an entirely new me kind of January.
Strong.
Sensible.
Stable.
Stunning.
Performance was a way of immediacy
something vulnerable, something active
exciting, happening.
I can't actually remember the first time I performed in front of an audience
apart from it being someone else's work.
There was no sort of time to look at your phone or even look away.
You were just captured.
It's not just you as a performer, it's also like the space around you
interacting with the environment or the environment interacting with me.
I often think a lot about environments:
awkward rooms, spaces and places.
Playing with the architecture of any space,
what it signifies, and how we are expected to behave.
And then trying to pull that apart and reimagine it.
If that makes sense?
Part One.
I am now in the male changing rooms
among them, although not one of them.
I'm doing my usual sauna session.
It's fairly dark.
It's fairly hot.
You can remain unnoticed.
Anonymous
and blend into the background.
When I start writing scripts, it's all small interactions
little things that just makes me think like, 'oh, that's interesting'.
I play a lot on fiction and fact
and sometimes imagine, 'oh, that would be quite funny
if you were to say that, or do that, how would they react?
And then sometimes it's actually a genuine thing that happens.
So it's a kind of mix between reality and, yeah, fiction
to create something that's, I don't know, quite surreal?
Being dyslexic, it was liberating to create my own language
my own scripts.
Being able to choose my own language
my assemblage of language
and I guess the syntax within that, the relationships.
Playing around and getting it wrong.
Outside the sauna, it clearly states written rules
that, 'all appropriate swimwear must be worn at all times'.
Also, it states: 'any inappropriate behaviour
will be reported immediately to the police'.
It is Britain after all.
So rules apply.
Being dyslexic, you're like, 'why am I so slow?'
Or 'why can't I can engage with the material
like, you know, like the other kids' and stuff like that.
And then you have to stand up to
do that, again, this performance.
You're trying so hard to keep up with the text
and when your bit would come, you would just say it as best as possible
and then you'll be lost again, within it.
I wouldn't be able to just like have this
fluid state or something like that.
And all that pressure, you'd just kind of buckle under.
Then developing scripts and like syntax you were like
able to like, navigate that however you wanted
and you couldn't get anything wrong.
As you get older, you're able to express yourself
and take ownership in ways to feel uncomfortable.
In performance you're able to put yourself out there
and that fear gives it something a bit more special.
Part three.
I decided to go and get changed
and beside my locker space
there was this man who
started spraying Lynx deodorant
all over himself.
In actual fact all over me
and all over everywhere.
The entirety of the space.
I'm going to have an asthma attack', I thought to myself.
It was so intense
suffocating and overwhelming.
With a live audience
you can engage much more in spaces are unfamiliar.
Um, especially awkward rooms.
It provokes a real human emotion.
So it's like a kind of collective
sharing of a human experience.
'Cos, it's nice to be connected, isn't it?
I think performance can get a bit of a hard time
because people are just: 'I'm going to be called up to say something or do something',
because we've all got probably anxiety or stress around these environments
'cos, when you don't know what's gonna happen
That's why usually, before the performances
I kind of deliver in a way of
how long it's going to be, kind of what it might involve.
And it's never going to involve direct audience participation
although I might move around the audience
because I'm interested in different locations in the space
and changing that dynamic.
Awkwardness is a nuance of human experiences that we all have.
How we act and, all these social pressures
and managing that and trying to fit into it.
And you're awkward because:
I might have got this wrong or right
or I don't know, because it's like
is that the right rule or the wrong rule?
Am I behaving correctly in this environment, or not?
It can get quite a lot in everyday life
so why not lighten it up and laugh at it?
So I'm back in the male changing rooms
and I decided to approach this man
who was sat opposite me in the lockers.
So I said to him, very casually, so I kind of wanted to fit in.
I said to him, 'good session?'
He was like, 'I gave it a go.
You?'
And I was like, 'oh, I'm just a beginner'.
[sniffs]
Then he replied with, 'aren't we all kid?'
I'm 33 years old
I thought to myself.
Exit scene.
Performance gives you an element of control
and it gives you that space for saying whatever you want
in any form you want.
I think that's quite interesting about performance
because you can be someone else as an alter ego
but give it in a way that gives yourself a voice.
I really like this thought from this book.
Erm
it's called,
the book's called Undesigning the Bath
by Leonard Koren.
Oh actually I'll just read it out to you.
It's a little excerpt.
[Calvin sniffs from the cold]
'A communal bathing situation
where everybody is equally conscious
of not knowing the rules
can cause a momentary breakdown of social hierarchy
which is actually a delightful sensation.
But quickly,
confusion and discomfort replace delight
when notions of courtesy, modesty, privacy
and propriety are individually addressed in conflicting ways'.
I don't know.
Maybe I hit some stuff?
[bright, slow organ chords]
Did I start arching too much?
Um.
[other voices join in, inaudibly]
It's hard to get too...
[Calvin sniffs]
Can I just see how that looks?
Just to get an idea...
[music and voices fade]