Concept - the story of tea v1.0

This idea started when I was thinking of tea-making rituals - I personally drink a lot of tea... When making a pot of tea, there is a certain element of ritual involved.

• It is a social exchange, a pause in the day, a polite tradition.
• There is a sequence of things you do, the order of which is important to you but may or may not make a difference (eg. warming the pot/the cups, measurements of tea leaves, the way the teapot is filled, water used, how long to brew/turn the pot 5 times to the west etc etc).

Having a cup of tea is a particularly 'British' thing to do when someone is upset ie. a cup of tea will fix most things.

A tea cup is associated with most of our senses (taste, smell - can tell how strong/what type of tea it is, touch - hot/cool/sensation of the cup, visual - can see the steam/how 'strong' it is by the colour/cup may have faint traces of old lipstick or tea stains from previous users, sound - of pouring/sipping)

There is trace evidence of yourself left behind in a tea cup - lipstick prints, fingerprints, tealeaves left behind will apparently tell a story about the tea drinker...

Relationship with our site

Christchurch has a very English heritage. There were probably many cups of tea offered and drank after each earthquake and aftershocks.
Theatre is associated with a certain degree of ritual (dressing up, the steps you take to eventually arrive at your seat).
Theatre (and, I hope, my final design) involves most if not all of our senses - sight, sound, smell, touch, sometimes taste indirectly with smell/touch.
The Odeon will contain traces of those who have been there before, scratches, imprints in the seats, dust in the corners and down the back of the seats, plus very obvious evidence of the earthquakes.

Concept Model idea v I

A plain tea cup + saucer, covered with layer of plaster on which there are imprints of lips/fingers - of those who have used the cup.
Inside the cup will be a layer of tea leaves cast in resin, also perhaps with layers using shellac - set on an angle implying past movement caught in time eg. an aftershock...a layered effect inside the cup to represent the past use of the cup. A built up of tea stains (?)

Perhaps also (but may confuse the concept of traces and ritual), may add a tablecloth - glass fabric cast in resin upside down with cup in the middle. This will, when set, look like the tableau has been suddenly disrupted, moved up and down abruptly (like an earthquake)....The cloth would be folded upwards around the tea cup but transparent so you can still see the cup quite clearly .