Douglas Wright
writing about making what would become his 2006 dance work “black milk” in his second book: “Terra Incognito”
P. 64
But as I know from experience, you can plan everything down to the last detail and then discover the first day in the Studio that you have to Scrap everything and think again. Still, I had a good feeling in my bones about my Strategy and was eager to try it in the flesh.
In any case I never adhere Strictly to my plans, however Cherished. Their primary function is to free me from fear so that I can stay open to the swarm of fugitive possibilities that always arise in the studio when I'm working with people rather than ideas. Or then again the plans are like the balancing pole a tightrope walker carries, with the difference this pole is alive and as paranormally sensitive as a cat's outstretched whiskers plumbing the dark equilibrium as it stalks nocturnal prey.
One of the greatest joys of my life is the dropping of the mask of expertise by admitting to myself that I just don't know and allowing that ecstatic dumbness to take its first steps into the unknown.
Reading over what I've just written I picked up the scent of a dichotomy. On the one hand I describe the process of planning a work in Some detail yet on the other hand I exalt in the technique of letting go of all preconceived notions and abandoning myself to Childlike play with no thought of any outcome. Therefore, one movement in the mind in creative work is active and conscious while the other is passive and unconscious. Just as Samuel Taylor Cole ridge once observed I experience these two opposing forces as being at the service of a third: the imagination, without which they would not exist. The act of invention is essentially rhythmic. Like breathing. On the inhalation we draw in and gather up all our accumulated Knowledge As if Contracting a precisely Selected group of muscles then on the exhalation we let it all go by using the Coiled energy to leap without premeditation in a purblind, artless Spring into the dark: a jump that hopefully lands us closes to If not in, the desired terra incognita. Artists need to be persistent. We leap and land again and again with indefatigable zeal. The action itself seems to bring relief to the questing mind and to actually find an Unforgettable scrap or hint of soul- dazzling poetry is eureka.
I believe this how the human mind moves as it Struggles to create continuously alternating between active and passive. Just as the mechanics of breathing are the direct result of the wings of the heart beating, so the imagining mind is propelled in jagged spurts towards its bashful quarry by the intensity of its longing. Eternity lives in the gaps between breaths. In the serene pauses where every mind forgets coming and going, in and out, and simply surrenders. I hope that some glad day one of these gaps will open wide enough to let me through to my long home.
Still I don't know if there is anything left to be discovered in our sub-lunar post human mindscape. Often what I initially believe is Virgin Soil turns out to have a Macdonald's just around the corner. But art born of cynicism is poison to my spirit so whenever I am not working as an antidote I constantly read books, watch films, and look at paintings and photographs choosing works that marvel and question rage lament and celebrate. They help me to say a joyous ‘no’ to the death-in-life I see around me every day.
P. 164 ->
In trying to describe a process that is largely submerged, like a human being swimming, I can only observe the parts of the process I am conscious of. Whenever I am brewing a new dance there is a subconscious apparatus constantly at work: I'm intermittently aware that it never stops sorting, choosing, matching up, rejecting, accepting and filing away anything it deems might belong in the work, bringing anything it eventually selects as a definite possibility to my conscious awareness for consideration.
It's a kind of metaphysical secretary, pimp of the invisible, with immeasurable influence on all my decisions. But I don't know the full extent of its operations and don't want to because I trust it. Another way of looking at this process is that the ideas or images choose me as their opportunity to see the light of day and try to seduce me with their ability to capture and hold my attention - what I call their haunting power. I won't accept anything that doesn't haunt me, any though I now have a dynasty of ghosts as part of my extended family, it is not always the obviously Strange or grotesque that keeps coming to mind and Coming to mind repeatedly. Sometimes I feel I am the one being auditioned to see if I'm brave enough to reject the thing I know will 'work' and choose instead the image, idea or approach that requires me to drop my old bag of tricks and start from 'the big don't know'. In this respect I am often a coward, but a coward emboldened by the knowledge that Cézanne was content with the same mountain, tree and bowl of fruit with skull for decades yet never reached the end of the bounty that comes with the tireless unflagging unveiling of the eye. It never fails to astound me that the thing I'm searching for with such complicated intensity is usually where I least expect to find it Sitting right under my nose. I want to see like brother dog.
P. I66
It is quite difficult to signal subtle variations in human relationships without words, or without resorting to the stilted language of traditional balletic mime...
One technique I had used successfully in the past was to ask the dancers to write and learn a verbal script based on the relationships I wanted to convey have them act the scene out with the words over and over until the words became lodged in their bodies as seeds of gestures. Then we would video the dancers performing the scene With the maximum of natural Unforced gestures - be Italian I'd say - and then we'd start to copy the minute conjugations and combinations of gesture from the video frame by Frame re-learning what had been improvised. I would Select some of the words and find a way to musicalise them within the body to dance them, and insert these little movement phrases as highlights within the whole gestural dialogue. The next step was to perform the copied and invented scene with the dancers saying the words under their breath, so as to retain the link between word and gesture which prevents the movement from going stale, and finally to take the words away but to urge the dancers to keep saying them in their minds as they moved: the spirit of the words made flesh.
This is time-consuming but a good way to represent the human animal in relationship without words. There is an alphabet of gesture, words and sentences, paragraphs and chapters, stories can be told if you take infinite pains. You have to want it more than anything else or it doesn't work. It falls apart at birth without the life-dealing want.
As Rumi once said:
The body is a device to calculate
The astronomy of the spirit
Showing posts with label nz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nz. Show all posts
Monday, 4 August 2008
Wednesday, 23 July 2008
"precious things" (stella duffy, shaky isles theatre)
wednesday 23 July 2008
Precious Things (we used to go on pilgrimages)
a play in progress
Directed and Devised by Stella Duffy
with Performers Emma Deakin, Kane Bixley, Kirsty Hamilton, Aaron Hapuku, Erica Lowe, Sam Webster, Jess Wood and (in spirit) Miriama McDowell
Lighting Design by Scott Stewart
Technical Operator: Salvador Brown
part of Shaky Isles Festival of Aotearoa: a feast of New Zealand and Pacific Art & Culture
at Pacific Playhouse
http://www.shakyislestheatre.com/main.php?inc=current
Good evening and welcome to Precious Things, a new work in progress from Shaky Isles Theatre – We love the planet, we love cheap flights.
We love the planet, we love good steak. We love the planet, we like our i-pods, computers, cars, trains, buses, privacy, garden hoses, TVs, movies, music, clothes, shoes, avocados. We want to eat mussels off the rock, and sit under our very own pohutakawa. We don’t know what we’re prepared to give up, and we do know we’re distracted from the Very Good Causes by nice boys or pretty girls. We want to be good, we want to play – we wonder if the two things can go together.
It starts with the sound of the sea.
The company of 7 actors hold hands and breathe the waves in – and - out - and - in - and - out.
Except actually it doesn't necessarily start with the sea at all as i discover when I see the show a second time. It starts with a game where the company pick up and follow each other’s sounds and movements - working together to make themselves one unified moment that subtly shifts and morphs into something else without sense of who – ideally not really anyone - is leading.
And if I think they are making the sea this is as much what they make happen in my head as it is what they have chanced into on the stage. In the second show I saw, the movements tended to wards pendulum patterns – which they / I / we make into clocks ticking, and surges of heaving movement from one side to the other, at one moment I even made the sea again. But the show is and is made from what actually happens at and from each moment and what these become through the organic moulding by the group.
And this is the power and joy of this show – you feel it being made fresh in front of you and from what is being made you make your own memories and rediscoveries and wonderings.
At every moment it is unfalteringly performed with an absolute commitment and presence and alertness and imaginative spontaneity and great gleeful grins so that through much of it we are grinning in irresistible kinaesthetic recognition.
This game acts throughout the show as a transition into and out of the dialogue sequences.
It also provides time for us in the audience to follow a little way the explosion of memories and imaginings their stories set off for us …
“I've know that place…”
“I remember that smell…”
“What stories will my children tell when they've grown?” (not mine that one. obviously.)
“What do i want to remember about my own dad?” (not that one either.)
In the first show I remember the Sea featuring in the memories of precious moments in NZ and the River featuring in their London stories. In the second show this is less apparent and the personal stories are deeper, richer given bigger moments by questions – asked sometimes by fellow performers and sometimes silently by the protagonists themselves so their remembering of their precious moments uncurl with a fullness and quite extraordinarily fluency.
The show works through a series of sequences that Stella has storyboarded pictorially in a set of clear guide images down one wall
“I remember...”
“I know I'm a kiwi because…” (there's a geordie too)
“I know I’m a kiwi in London because...”
“I know I’ve been in London too long because…”
“The thing I care about is…”
A couple of sequences challenge us out of these gentle meanderings:
One is a game that seems to be called “you spoiled it!” At the first show this was teasing and fun; at the second show it started to build towards something that smelt more dangerous and I wonder if this could be taken without sacrificing authenticity?
The second is when the performers face us directly and tell us the things they don't care about - challenging us to dare to agree with them. These are mostly personal wants and lifestyle indulgences overtaking social and global concerns, but they also these also reveal a glimpse of some of the real values of these young people. The audience seem to receive this with a mixture of enjoyment, approval and uneasiness.
There is sequence headlined ''what I do care about is...” that cuts away the ensemble dynamic into a set of more disconnected voices - isolated for once in the telling and remembering of their own memories and using each other's feeds to re-activate their own stories. I wonder if this effect could be heightened by the performers disengaging completely from each other and disappearing visibly into their own treasures rather than continuing to the maintain their concentrated focus with and for each other?
I would also love to see a longer show that springboarded off into stories of some of the people we hear about but don t yet get to really meet- the dads, the mothers, the grandmother, the siblings and friends -the people who are part of the precious moments each player conjures up and in so doing hints at other's stories tucked inside. Is there a ‘russian doll game’ that could be played to find the Story inside the Story inside the Story inside the Story...?
And with more time I wonder what this company would make if they could take the LifeGame strategy longer and play out in reimaginings from the stories that are suggested and – at the moment only momentarily – visualised by the players: the dodgem car races; the first bottle of Tui beer on the porch with dad; the first meeting with your birth mother; the first boyfriend…
The great and exciting triumph of this show is the range and vitality of experience the form and the storytelling and the playing trigger in us - they give us a myriad of moments to recognise and weave into our own stories and a little time along the way to disappear into them
And it is wonderful to see the LifeGame form given this level of focus and development
This company look and sound onstage like an already mature and very strong ensemble with an abundance of energy immediacy and ensemble rapport and i am curious to know what magic formular made this possible in so little time? Stella? Emma? this particular group? kiwi-ism? the alchemy of impro?
Stella's next idea is to continue to work regularly with this company to discover what it might become and make next, and I wonder what would happen if they experimented at uncovering the stories about the people who have touched them from the parts of these they hold already
At the moment we are getting fragments that mostly tend to echo ourselves back to us - what more could be done with this?
And how could the brilliance of the ensemble togetherness now be played around with to allow for a variety of different moods and dynamics without risking the apparently ego-free collaboration in the joyful playful impro they are already making?
And yes yes Stella - what could you do with music?
What I hope this show / company will keep is its fresh and new response to my questions around how you make an exceptional experience for the audience that happens as much in our hearts and heads as it does on the stage?
Their answer seems to be: Make it authentic. Trust the moment. Trust the stories you have already. And trust the audience to bring themselves into the mix.
As a postscript it was great reminding Emma that barely a year ago she was producing her first ticketed play readings and now she has produced and sold this festival of mixed New Zealand arts - a huge achievement. The tough bit now is how to take the company to the next level and get the money for people to be paid and thus be able to make something that doesn't have to depend on people's donated time
A timely reminder of the tough uncaring world out there as I begin my return back into the performance arena …
Precious Things (we used to go on pilgrimages)
a play in progress
Directed and Devised by Stella Duffy
with Performers Emma Deakin, Kane Bixley, Kirsty Hamilton, Aaron Hapuku, Erica Lowe, Sam Webster, Jess Wood and (in spirit) Miriama McDowell
Lighting Design by Scott Stewart
Technical Operator: Salvador Brown
part of Shaky Isles Festival of Aotearoa: a feast of New Zealand and Pacific Art & Culture
at Pacific Playhouse
http://www.shakyislestheatre.com/main.php?inc=current
Good evening and welcome to Precious Things, a new work in progress from Shaky Isles Theatre – We love the planet, we love cheap flights.
We love the planet, we love good steak. We love the planet, we like our i-pods, computers, cars, trains, buses, privacy, garden hoses, TVs, movies, music, clothes, shoes, avocados. We want to eat mussels off the rock, and sit under our very own pohutakawa. We don’t know what we’re prepared to give up, and we do know we’re distracted from the Very Good Causes by nice boys or pretty girls. We want to be good, we want to play – we wonder if the two things can go together.
It starts with the sound of the sea.
The company of 7 actors hold hands and breathe the waves in – and - out - and - in - and - out.
Except actually it doesn't necessarily start with the sea at all as i discover when I see the show a second time. It starts with a game where the company pick up and follow each other’s sounds and movements - working together to make themselves one unified moment that subtly shifts and morphs into something else without sense of who – ideally not really anyone - is leading.
And if I think they are making the sea this is as much what they make happen in my head as it is what they have chanced into on the stage. In the second show I saw, the movements tended to wards pendulum patterns – which they / I / we make into clocks ticking, and surges of heaving movement from one side to the other, at one moment I even made the sea again. But the show is and is made from what actually happens at and from each moment and what these become through the organic moulding by the group.
And this is the power and joy of this show – you feel it being made fresh in front of you and from what is being made you make your own memories and rediscoveries and wonderings.
At every moment it is unfalteringly performed with an absolute commitment and presence and alertness and imaginative spontaneity and great gleeful grins so that through much of it we are grinning in irresistible kinaesthetic recognition.
This game acts throughout the show as a transition into and out of the dialogue sequences.
It also provides time for us in the audience to follow a little way the explosion of memories and imaginings their stories set off for us …
“I've know that place…”
“I remember that smell…”
“What stories will my children tell when they've grown?” (not mine that one. obviously.)
“What do i want to remember about my own dad?” (not that one either.)
In the first show I remember the Sea featuring in the memories of precious moments in NZ and the River featuring in their London stories. In the second show this is less apparent and the personal stories are deeper, richer given bigger moments by questions – asked sometimes by fellow performers and sometimes silently by the protagonists themselves so their remembering of their precious moments uncurl with a fullness and quite extraordinarily fluency.
The show works through a series of sequences that Stella has storyboarded pictorially in a set of clear guide images down one wall
“I remember...”
“I know I'm a kiwi because…” (there's a geordie too)
“I know I’m a kiwi in London because...”
“I know I’ve been in London too long because…”
“The thing I care about is…”
A couple of sequences challenge us out of these gentle meanderings:
One is a game that seems to be called “you spoiled it!” At the first show this was teasing and fun; at the second show it started to build towards something that smelt more dangerous and I wonder if this could be taken without sacrificing authenticity?
The second is when the performers face us directly and tell us the things they don't care about - challenging us to dare to agree with them. These are mostly personal wants and lifestyle indulgences overtaking social and global concerns, but they also these also reveal a glimpse of some of the real values of these young people. The audience seem to receive this with a mixture of enjoyment, approval and uneasiness.
There is sequence headlined ''what I do care about is...” that cuts away the ensemble dynamic into a set of more disconnected voices - isolated for once in the telling and remembering of their own memories and using each other's feeds to re-activate their own stories. I wonder if this effect could be heightened by the performers disengaging completely from each other and disappearing visibly into their own treasures rather than continuing to the maintain their concentrated focus with and for each other?
I would also love to see a longer show that springboarded off into stories of some of the people we hear about but don t yet get to really meet- the dads, the mothers, the grandmother, the siblings and friends -the people who are part of the precious moments each player conjures up and in so doing hints at other's stories tucked inside. Is there a ‘russian doll game’ that could be played to find the Story inside the Story inside the Story inside the Story...?
And with more time I wonder what this company would make if they could take the LifeGame strategy longer and play out in reimaginings from the stories that are suggested and – at the moment only momentarily – visualised by the players: the dodgem car races; the first bottle of Tui beer on the porch with dad; the first meeting with your birth mother; the first boyfriend…
The great and exciting triumph of this show is the range and vitality of experience the form and the storytelling and the playing trigger in us - they give us a myriad of moments to recognise and weave into our own stories and a little time along the way to disappear into them
And it is wonderful to see the LifeGame form given this level of focus and development
This company look and sound onstage like an already mature and very strong ensemble with an abundance of energy immediacy and ensemble rapport and i am curious to know what magic formular made this possible in so little time? Stella? Emma? this particular group? kiwi-ism? the alchemy of impro?
Stella's next idea is to continue to work regularly with this company to discover what it might become and make next, and I wonder what would happen if they experimented at uncovering the stories about the people who have touched them from the parts of these they hold already
At the moment we are getting fragments that mostly tend to echo ourselves back to us - what more could be done with this?
And how could the brilliance of the ensemble togetherness now be played around with to allow for a variety of different moods and dynamics without risking the apparently ego-free collaboration in the joyful playful impro they are already making?
And yes yes Stella - what could you do with music?
What I hope this show / company will keep is its fresh and new response to my questions around how you make an exceptional experience for the audience that happens as much in our hearts and heads as it does on the stage?
Their answer seems to be: Make it authentic. Trust the moment. Trust the stories you have already. And trust the audience to bring themselves into the mix.
As a postscript it was great reminding Emma that barely a year ago she was producing her first ticketed play readings and now she has produced and sold this festival of mixed New Zealand arts - a huge achievement. The tough bit now is how to take the company to the next level and get the money for people to be paid and thus be able to make something that doesn't have to depend on people's donated time
A timely reminder of the tough uncaring world out there as I begin my return back into the performance arena …
Saturday, 3 May 2008
"faith" by tom mccrory (dir. stella duffy)
friday 2nd may 2008
"faith"
by tom mccrory
shaky isles theatre
part of southern lights ~ a season of rehearsed play readings from aotearoa - new zealand
http://www.shakyislestheatre.com/main.php
directed by stella duffy
marlene sidaway ~ ruth mooney, mother of james
kane blixley ~ james mooney, partner of sara hurrel
angela bull ~ sara hurrel, partner of james
thomas craig - chris farrel, best friend of james
emma deakin ~ jackie farrel, wife of chris and childhood friend of james
terence bailer ~ bill, old friend of ruth's
vinicius salles ~ anotonio, immigarnt from argentina & co-worker of sara
this was unfeasibly well performed for a show that has had precious little time for rehearsal and that often transcended the constraints of a reading to give us moments of great potency and beauty.
the joy of this show for me came from a coupling of the writing's lyrical flow with an easy warmth and naturalness of the player's performances, punctuated with moments of intense recognition that came from a number of moments of perfectly phrased and focused moments:
i also loved that the dead ruth who talked to us was so much more tranquil and warm than i suspect the woman we heard about who had had to be so much more a survivor and a fighter.
(tom mcrcory is also producer for the international tour of "vula")
"faith"
by tom mccrory
shaky isles theatre
part of southern lights ~ a season of rehearsed play readings from aotearoa - new zealand
http://www.shakyislestheatre.com/main.php
directed by stella duffy
marlene sidaway ~ ruth mooney, mother of james
kane blixley ~ james mooney, partner of sara hurrel
angela bull ~ sara hurrel, partner of james
thomas craig - chris farrel, best friend of james
emma deakin ~ jackie farrel, wife of chris and childhood friend of james
terence bailer ~ bill, old friend of ruth's
vinicius salles ~ anotonio, immigarnt from argentina & co-worker of sara
"enduring parting is an act of faith, only the invisible survives it."
at 15 years old ruth arrives in wellington a refugee from the holocaust, the only survivior in her family.
now 72, ruth guides us on a journey of faith, exploring what survives across the generations.
this was unfeasibly well performed for a show that has had precious little time for rehearsal and that often transcended the constraints of a reading to give us moments of great potency and beauty.
the joy of this show for me came from a coupling of the writing's lyrical flow with an easy warmth and naturalness of the player's performances, punctuated with moments of intense recognition that came from a number of moments of perfectly phrased and focused moments:
+ ... she wouldn't raise you as a jew "because she couldn't trust that it wouldn't happen again ..."
+ ... "when i had my little boy there was another person like me in the world again ..."
+ ... "i looked at my baby son and he smiled and it was my smile. and i thought about my father and wondered where do we get our smiles from? ..."
i also loved that the dead ruth who talked to us was so much more tranquil and warm than i suspect the woman we heard about who had had to be so much more a survivor and a fighter.
(tom mcrcory is also producer for the international tour of "vula")
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
"vula" (the conch) *** and "moon water" (cloud gate theatre) ***
wednesday 30th april 2008
(unfinished posting)
"vula"
the conch
directed by ~ nina nawalowalo
associate director / co-producer ~ tom mccrory
producer ~ derek simpson
matai - cultural advisor ~ lani tupu snr
composer ~ gareth farr
designer ~ tolis papzoglou
lighting designer ~ stephen blackburn
lighting operator ~ nick janiurek
puppeteer ~ salesi le'ota
cast ~ fiona collins, kasaya manulevu, ngapaki emery and nora aati
supported by creative new zealand
programme notes:
Performed on a stage flooded with water, Vula (Fijian for ‘moon’) combines magic and illusion with traditional song and dance. With one rich and captivating image flowing into another, it paints an evocative picture of the lives of Pacific Island women and their sensual and spiritual relationship with the sea. As the performers move and dance through the water, they take us on a journey through a Pacific Island day and night. Movement, song and humour intermingle with the glistening water and lighting in a wonderful harmony of elements.
Vula is the first work from groundbreaking Pacific Island company The Conch.
Founded by director Nina Nawalowalo, the company’s work combines the traditional and the contemporary, exploring the potential for marrying the rich performing arts cultures of the Pacific with European theatre styles. Before founding The Conch in New Zealand, Nina Nawalowalo studied mime in London and Paris. For six years she performed and taught all over the world, creating new productions from a unique blend of magic, mask and clowning.
this was a joyful image-and-emotion-rich performance of great beauty, wit, laughter, strength and power and hidden depths. its power came from what this company were able to evoke from the music, movement, occasional mahem & theatre they made in a fabulously lit and shadowed shallow tank of water ...
+ the sound of the surf
+ squeezing the juice from the cava
+ rising out from the sea
+ strong women, low grounded fluid movements reminding me of tai chi (see about cloud gate theatre's "moon water" after this)
+ being underwater with the many (fan)fish
+ the strength and rhythm of rowing
+ sail boats
+ women laughing, singing, playing, washing, teasing, bathing, fooling around, dancing
+ church singers in their white frocks in a delightful sequence that changed the people and what they were wearing with every pass of the sailboat
+ church singers in the rain
+ the women emerging from the cacoons to dance
+ lifting shells and jewels from the sea
+ the horror of hearing and watching sopmething beautiful caught in a net
+ the sounds and splashes and light play and reflection of water
+ a boat returning at night to shore by candlelight
+ the harmonies and rhythms that the sea holds and plays with and lets us hear and imagine with
wonderful wonderful show
wednesday 16 april 2008
"moon water"cloud gate dance theatre of taiwan
as was this show which i will have to come back to talk about when i next have time ...
Thursday, 24 April 2008
memories, bodies & landscapes: “the gathering”
monday 10th march 2008
“the gathering”
discussion forum:
memories, bodies & internal landscapes
bernie grant arts centre,
3.30pm sunday 9th march 2008
How do female artists connect with and draw on their own memories in their work?
Featuring Peggy Shaw, Anna Furse, Akosua Bambara, Cassie Waller, Shirley Williams, Rosanna Raymond and Campbell.
http://www.berniegrantcentre.co.uk/pl78.html
Peggy Shaw
independent New York performance artist, painter and poet
http://www.splitbritches.com/pages/peggy.html
my notes/quotes:
Anna Furse
award winning director and writer of over 50 text driven and devised works
classically trained dancer influenced by study with Peter Brook, Grotowski and in new dance forms has developed her own training methodology that creates theatre from the body outwards “Glass Body”(2005) – innovative infertility installation from a performance devised from her experience making her daughter through IVF developed with Imaging Dept, Assisted Contraception Unit and Hospital Arts at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and with scientific mentoring of Prof. Stuart Campbell at Create Health
http://www.athletesoftheheart.org/
my notes/quotes:
my notes about “Glass Body”:
Akousa Bambara
visual orator©, designer, jeweller, enameller and ceramic artist
Akousa has developed and produced Dialogue Panels© also known as Wall Jewellery© and Dialogue Tags©
http://www.ligali.org/article.php?id=1760
my notes/quotes:
Cassie Waller
video artist and photographer currently studying Interactive Media at Bernie Grant Arts Centre
“Found At Sea” uses archive media of her parents from 1976 to 1985: 16mm fottage of her father building a boat is integrated with taped conversation between her mother and father, the video reconstructs his obsessive journey to escape his life. Dedicated to and about my parents.
my notes/quotes:
Shirley Williams
influenced by textures
Shirley already possessed dressmaking skills from watching her seamstress grandma cut and make clothes without need of a pattern. Collage introduced her to the fundamentals and her garments now sell to celebs from her stall at Spitalfields market her exhibition is a series of recreated collaged books made from and out the memories the original books contain, including her own memories
my notes/quotes:
Rosanna Raymond
New Zealand born performance / installation / body adornment artist and writer currently living and working in London.
A ‘Tusitala’ (storyteller) at heart
http://www.londonfale.org.uk/spotlight-rosanna01.html
my notes/quotes:
Barby Asante
London based multimedia producer and artist
whose work focuses on concepts such as identity and self-expression: how much do we define personal identity through comparison, competition and aspiration?
Much of her performance installations place the viewer at the centre of the artistic process through physical interactive experiences: in her show “wig therapy” she has an assistant book people in for an hour’s session trying out wigs and talking
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/events/event.php?id=341
my notes/quotes:
Campbell
queer filmmaker (no biog provided)
my notes/quotes:
“the gathering”
discussion forum:
memories, bodies & internal landscapes
bernie grant arts centre,
3.30pm sunday 9th march 2008
How do female artists connect with and draw on their own memories in their work?
Featuring Peggy Shaw, Anna Furse, Akosua Bambara, Cassie Waller, Shirley Williams, Rosanna Raymond and Campbell.
http://www.berniegrantcentre.co.uk/pl78.html
Autobiography and personal memory runs through women’s storytelling.
“The Gathering” festival harbours weekend of strange revelations, physical protestations, secrets revealed and declarations bellowed, brings together an unprecedented line-up of distinctive voices in female music, live art, visual art, spoken word, film, fashion and literature for cross cultural exploration and mind body expansions.
Some of the world’s leading female artists come together to discuss and examine aspects of memory and the creative process of their work, from cutting edge film to physical performance.
Join in the discussion and consider “how female artists connect with and draw on their own memories in their work?” …
Peggy Shaw
independent New York performance artist, painter and poet
http://www.splitbritches.com/pages/peggy.html
my notes/quotes:
“I work from impulse…”
“I have lumps in my body … if I squeeze them really hard maybe I’ll get a monologue…”
“I write for 10minutes without taking the pen off the paper … a technique for automatic writing: if stuck write ‘what I mean to say is …’ … keeps you honest …”
“after every show I try to have talkback – everyone can share the personal memories…”
“I work a lot with lies: try to lie and interesting truths come out…”
Anna Furse
award winning director and writer of over 50 text driven and devised works
classically trained dancer influenced by study with Peter Brook, Grotowski and in new dance forms has developed her own training methodology that creates theatre from the body outwards “Glass Body”(2005) – innovative infertility installation from a performance devised from her experience making her daughter through IVF developed with Imaging Dept, Assisted Contraception Unit and Hospital Arts at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital and with scientific mentoring of Prof. Stuart Campbell at Create Health
http://www.athletesoftheheart.org/
my notes/quotes:
“our memories are in our bodies – that’s all we have…”
my notes about “Glass Body”:
... in the centre of the space a stainless steel hospital trolley, an open drawer showing a pair of child’s red shoes, a child’s red jacket, a string of pearls (all of which appear in the show), its surface covered in sculptured salt providing the ‘screen’ for the video of the performance: a performer (woman) and a voice Anna) – it's about seeing the you inside your body, about the birth of ‘our kid’ Nina – (universal name for girl apparently), about eggs, cells, x-rays, sonic sounds, whale sounds, submarine sounds. stacked on the bottom shelf of the trolley are petri dishes that audiences are invited to write messages onto – one reads “to all my lost babies”. a bank of computers showing a moving exhibit of these petri dishes and one with an ‘interactive toy’ that invites you to piece together a woman’s reproductive system by dragging and placing – i was completely hopeless. reminiscent of those cut-out dress-up dolls with the different clothes and accessories - i was better with these once. at each end a projection of a painting of an early medical examination ...
Akousa Bambara
visual orator©, designer, jeweller, enameller and ceramic artist
Akousa has developed and produced Dialogue Panels© also known as Wall Jewellery© and Dialogue Tags©
http://www.ligali.org/article.php?id=1760
my notes/quotes:
“my work is about reclaiming – it’s about owning our [Afro-Caribbean] stories …”
“our story is constantly being interrupted by others’ assumptions …”
“I make in metal because I want the work to last … I want it to be dug up in 1,000 years and interpreted as an important part of the record …”
“I call myself a direct descendent of the kidnapped people of Africa – I call myself a dark power …”
Cassie Waller
video artist and photographer currently studying Interactive Media at Bernie Grant Arts Centre
“Found At Sea” uses archive media of her parents from 1976 to 1985: 16mm fottage of her father building a boat is integrated with taped conversation between her mother and father, the video reconstructs his obsessive journey to escape his life. Dedicated to and about my parents.
my notes/quotes:
“in the end it was exorcising … I’m not angry any more …”
Shirley Williams
influenced by textures
Shirley already possessed dressmaking skills from watching her seamstress grandma cut and make clothes without need of a pattern. Collage introduced her to the fundamentals and her garments now sell to celebs from her stall at Spitalfields market her exhibition is a series of recreated collaged books made from and out the memories the original books contain, including her own memories
my notes/quotes:
“the way I put things together is instinctive but the elements have been gathered over a long period of time … I collect things sporadically …”
“I like fragments … layers upon layers upon layers …”
“I try to recreate texture … manmade things that collide with nature …”
“I make scrapbooks and notebooks that hold a lot of my memories …"
“my work is reactionary … I like to work with something that already exists … like a collection of garments that I’ve got from charity shops that I’ve deconstructed and put together as a collage into a new garment …”
Rosanna Raymond
New Zealand born performance / installation / body adornment artist and writer currently living and working in London.
A ‘Tusitala’ (storyteller) at heart
http://www.londonfale.org.uk/spotlight-rosanna01.html
my notes/quotes:
“I am a ‘afulcasi’ – a half-caste … part Maori and part Samoan…”
“I was brought up and influenced by my Samoan grandmother in oral histories and crafts..."
Barby Asante
London based multimedia producer and artist
whose work focuses on concepts such as identity and self-expression: how much do we define personal identity through comparison, competition and aspiration?
Much of her performance installations place the viewer at the centre of the artistic process through physical interactive experiences: in her show “wig therapy” she has an assistant book people in for an hour’s session trying out wigs and talking
http://www.artsadmin.co.uk/events/event.php?id=341
my notes/quotes:
“I want to leave the audience feeling empowered not manipulated …”
“in Slovenia I felt belittled by their reactions and one inner voice said ‘you don’t have to take this shit’ and another inner voice said ‘you started this dialogue now you have to follow it through’ … I learned so much about how to work with what actually happens to make the conversation … what can I use now to make this conversation happen? …”
Campbell
queer filmmaker (no biog provided)
my notes/quotes:
“my film is about how my mother parented me and what was taken and rejected from how her mother brought her up …”
“some things are so ingrained you can’t let go of them …”
“how we move is African – they couldn’t beat that out of us …”
"Instructions for Modern Living" (Duncan Sarkies and Nic McGowan)
saturday 5th april 2008
Instructions for Modern Living
Duncan Sarkies and Nic McGowan
The Pit
Duncan Sarkies and Nic McGowan
The Pit
barbican bite08
Tuesday 1 April – Saturday 5 April 2008
New Zealand
Tuesday 1 April – Saturday 5 April 2008
New Zealand
this is the show we saw last night - from nz as you will see.
and interestingly we were a split jury on this one:
i loved it and martyn hated it (amended this to a more neutral response after hearing them talk about the making and performing of it in the post show talk).
they take the model of a band performing a set of 'songs', except that in this case the 'songs' are written dialogues and monologues of an array of characters trying to get through a long night of sleeplessness to the morning, written and performed by duncan sarkies with live music made and performed by nic mcgowan. they made the show very much together in a series of 'jam sessions' -impro-ing the words alongside the music.
the piece is very laid back, lethargic, melancholic, amorphic (add further nightime slowmoving adjectives of your choice - martyn's might be laconic. soporiphic. deadly...) - very nz in in this deliberately unhurried atmosphere and one of our criticisms is that all the effects added together into this one same affect - music, lighting, words performance, images - there was nothing acting in counterpoint. so what you got was a stage full of tech kit - sound gear & musical instruments (keyboards, vodophone, weird electronic thingy - therefone we think it's called - you play it with your hands seemingly thru thin air), microphone, music stand that duncan used to work thru and discard his scripts from, video camera, old fashioned record player with a sarah vaughn l.p. on it. and behind them a large screen that images were played on and that we saw thru the layer of them and their equipment. they wanted us to see them physically making the show as it happened and to know that all the sound and many of the video images were live. so you get this very trance like music being set up in a series of layered loops building up on top of and over each other: keyboard, synth orchestral sounds, voice, etc etc etc. behind this different night time images suggesting the scene of the story.
and we get story after story - always from the 1st person - so either monoloque or dialogue. all performed thru a microphone so the change in voices and sounds that duncan was able to give us was phenomenal.
we start with...
...a house at night with it's lights on until we see a shadowey person come thru into the front room and then leave turning out the lights:
"we haven't told wendy about the ghost that lives in her room. wendy is our new flatmate and we want her to stay for a bit. so we haven't told her about the ghost. but the ghost seems to like wendy. it is always there in her room when she comes home from work. and again when she goes up to bed..."
... an apartment block in the rain with all its lights blazing away thru the gloom:
"it's 3am and i'm here at radio whatever waiting to take your calls. whatever your problems give me a call and let's talk. well i see the board is clear so i'm standing by and ready for your call. we all have problems. and let's face it anyone who is awake and listening to this show at this time in the morning has certainly got a problem or two. so the board is still showing clear so i'm ready to talk to you. well perhaps i should get the ball rolling. i had a troubled childhood. like a lot of people. not a happy little child...."
...a car driving thru city streets seen through the front window:
"...i'm on my way home. and i know that i'm not going to like what i find when i get there. i know my wife will be home. but i also know she won't be very happy to see me. chances are she'll be in bed already, pretending to be asleep when i walk in. there'll be nothing for dinner i shouldn't think..."
this story finished with the car reversing:
"...so what if we could rewind the tape of our lives. where would you like to go back to? back to that time you were young and out partying every night? back to being at school and never getting picked for the cool teams? back to being a young kid and...."
...a screen of static:
"...huston this is friendship, over"
" friendship this is huston. receiving you loud and clear, over"
"roger that huston. nothing to report. all isgood here. over"
" copy that friendship."
"actually, when i say all is good here there that's not quite the truth. actually, i'm not so good with words, but well how to say, i guess it's just that i'm really bored. over"
"huston? please confirm you are receiving. over"
"oh. this is huston. yes. copy that friendship. just can't think of how to help really. over.""this is friendship. yes roger that huston. i guess this is one i'll just have to work through by myself"
"actually frienship, i'm pretty bored myself as it happens. over"
"oh. well i've got a power nap scheduled so i'll sign out huston"
"there's nothing to do here. and i haven't even got a window. what do you see through your window friendship? over""well huston. you know the pictures of the earth you see quite often on the covers of those atlases?"
"yeah"
"well the view from my windon pretty much looks like that."
"oh. copy that friendship"
....a figure leaning against a wall looking at a wall of tvs in a shop windowall playing the same pictures:
sorry - can't remember this story but it was my favourite image and i went into a bit of my own dream with it i think
...a silhouette in a pub of a couple of blokes facing each other over a table with their beer glasses:
(bass voice) "did you hear about the brazillian?"
(pipey voice) "that's a landing strip isn't it?"
"no. i mean the people. from brazil. the brazillian the police shot in london in the tube station?"
"oh. yeah"
"it's not right that. it's just because he was of the wrong colour."
"yeah.you've got to be right colour these days"
"especially over there you do. since 9/11 they've got police everywhere."
"wasn't 9/11 america?"
"well you know what i mean. they've toughened all the security up and you can't move anywhere over there now"
"really? sounds like a terrible place to be"
...a silhouette of a couple in armchairs from the back with their tea cups on side tables watching a tv show about a gadget for putting your hair into aperfect bun:
"are you enjoying this?"
"yes i am. it's interesting."
"oh. do you think so."
"yes i do. why? what do you want to watch?"
"no no this is fine."
"if you want to watch something else just say so."
"no this is fine."
"we could turn it off."
"and do what?"
"and have a conversation. we never talk."
"allright then."
"what do you want to talk about?"
"you start. it was your idea."
"ok... this is a really nice cup of tea"
" on no no no. that's not a conversation. you cannot have a conversation about a cup of tea"
i've taken a lot of liberties with the writing of these from memory - the essence is there but duncan sarkies is a proper writer and i'm trying to just recapture my future recollection.
gives you the idea tho i think.
there was also a happy monologue along the lines of ...
gives you the idea tho i think.
there was also a happy monologue along the lines of ...
"...how did i get so lucky. i'd resigned myself to spending the rest of my love life lover-less. and then you came along. what did i do to deserve you? ..."
and the last piece was a new age sermon about rejoicing in the beauty and wonder of the world and its natural beauty with the only day time images they used - waterfalls, dolphins and other 'glorious nature' pics - because they wanted to have something different in the mix and a place to lead to and end with. but it didn't come off well for us and it was too unclear that the tone was meant to be heavily ironic (where the rest of the voices had been - to themselves at least - sincere & true).
so anyway...
i am watching and thinking:
so anyway...
i am watching and thinking:
wow this is so exciting and what a brilliant model for a way to make a show and how great to be given all this space to have my own thoughts and dreams in and maybe these aren't the stories i would want to be telling but as a jumping off point for imagining and experiencing something how rish and wonderful and how cool that i'm gonna get the chance to be learning some of this technology at g'smiths and yes yes yes ...
and i turn to martyn at the end and say
"wasn't that so great. what did you think?"
and he says:
"i hated it!"
cos i think he has meanwhile been watching and thinking:
"oh god i recognise all these no-hoper losers all too well and i am so not interested in their stories and god this is self-indulgent and slow and who cares and this is soooo nz not in a good way and all right all right i get the message move on already ..."
then from the post show talk and quite a lot of our own post show talking we have both modified our views closer together so he doesn't hate it quite so much and can see things to like about it and i have admitted it some faults and agreed that a big one of these was that there was no anticipation or surprise - you kinda figured out what you were going to get early on and then as the piece progressed you had less and less need - and thus desire - to stay alert and involved.
but another thrilling experience at the theatre in ye ole london towne.
and fantastic to be getting cutting edge performance this good from our homeland.
but another thrilling experience at the theatre in ye ole london towne.
and fantastic to be getting cutting edge performance this good from our homeland.
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