#Impermanence Dance Theatre Company

[writefightandflightclub]

list five things that make you happy. Leave this in the inbox of anyone who has made you happy on this hellsite 🥰💐

1. Beach days: Hunting for sea glass and finding a whole bunch to pop in your pocket. The smell of saltwater. The grains of sand beneath your feet. Finding the most interesting pebbles or petrified wood or weird buried objects. Peering into rock pools and watching the life there. The colours. The openness; the frayed edge of land. The sea. The beautiful sea. The sound of it. How it is different every single time you visit it. When waves catch the pier and spray you. Walking to the lighthouse and spotting dolphins. Eating ice cream or fish and chips. The feel in your legs after the bracing walk to the top of a cliff as the breeze whips your hair. The feeling of finding a hidden cave or cove to explore and imagining you’re the first visitor. The sun dancing on the tips of the waves like music. The quiet. The rhythm of it. Bracing yourself to get in when it’s too cold. The feel of towel dried hair and freshness, salt on your lips. Putting starfish back in the water. The moon shining softly down. The timelessness of it. The impermanence of it. Taking so many pictures. (Huge bonus if it’s raining or storming 😂)

2. Forests: the green, the bird song, the air, the varied textures underfoot from springy moss to nobbled tree roots. The colours. The variety. The shade. The peace. Bark under my fingers. Climbing things. Touching things. Stopping to admire the majesty of flowers and plants. Spotting a bird or an animal. Crunching leaves in autumn. The blaze of orange trees. Feeling free. Hunting for mushrooms. Taking so many pictures. (Rain is nice here too…)

3. Getting lost in a creation (of mine or someone else’s): writing (lol, my true love), singing, drawing, photography, reading, theatre, films, music, watching, viewing, listening, feeling, thinking, making, exploring, learning. Always learning. Always fangirling about things.

4. Big city days: the bustle, the interest, the anonymity, the way you can slip into it and disappear, the quiet havens in the noise, the unpredictability, the novelty and excitement, smiles and laughs, the sights and lights and sensations, the sheer and infinite possibility of it, the aroma of coffee and a trip to a museum or gallery where you can be swallowed by history and creativity and the human experience. BOOKSHOPS! The way it makes your mind tick. Taking so many photos again, lol. (Don’t mind if it rains here either 😂)

5. Home: long hot baths, snuggling on the sofa, my favourite mug and favourite company, films we might hate or might love, talking about them afterwards, everything I need being within reach, the absence of demands or expectations, the feel of a book in my hands and love in my arms, the trees outside the window, a warm cosy bed and pyjamas all day. Listening to the rain outside with nowhere to be.

BONUS: CUTE PARROT VIDEOS 😂😂😂 I DIEEEEEEE!

Thanks so much for sending this ask, Anon! 🧡🧡🧡

[theseadagiodays]

May 4, 2020

This is Not a Performance

Irving H Bolano’s incredible repurposed newspaper fashion for the Met Gala Challenge on Twitter #HFMetGala2020

May the Fourth be With You as you reach the next chapter of this current sci-fi drama we seem to be living through.   As the saying goes, reality can be stranger than fiction.   But it just happens to be a many red-eyed virus rather than an evil, black-masked father that we’re fighting as we all walk around like Storm Troopers.  

There are so many aspects of our lives, during Covid, which make it feel like we are actors in a make-believe story.   First of all, we’ve all become movie stars, with our faces, homes, and even pets showcased on our own silver screens.  As isolated as we are, our private lives now play out in the public sphere more than ever - no paparazzi required.    For some, this invasion of privacy is unwelcomed. But for many people, it satisfies a secret longing to share themselves with a wider audience.  After all, deep down, everyone wants to be seen and heard (I guess, me included, since I have this blog, after all).  It’s why TikTok and YouTube and Facebook have become multi-billion dollar companies so quickly.  And now, while this pandemic is a harsh daily reminder of the impermanence of all things, it makes sense that these digital missives are an attempt to seek immortality, in some strange way.

As someone whose work responds to human’s need to have a voice, I truly get why this is the case.  And I love that this time has turned housewives into opera stars, and health care workers into hip hop dancers, and housepets into circus performers. But, at the same time, I have become very aware of the masks that we wear, even inside our homes, to portray a certain self to the world that may stray quite far from our authentic selves.  The expression “dance like no one is watching” acknowledges the fact that we all tend to perform when we have an audience, and perhaps we’re only truly ourselves when we don’t.   I understand that the way we “perform” ourselves online gives each of us a chance to reinvent the fictions we want our stories to have.   So, while I surely take some guilty pleasure from intimate glimpses into strangers’ lives, I also do so with a certain skepticism about the veracity of what I’m seeing.  

This became particularly true for me when I received a recent link from my friend and amazing singer/songwriter, Dominique Fricot. Capitalizing on this current trend of oversharing, he cleverly asked his fans to film their morning routines for the music video of his new song, Wake Up, by his duo, Flora Falls.  Dom’s warm tenor voice blended with his partner’s breathy tones feel just like a lazy morning in bed.  But I’ll leave it up to you to decide just how accurate these portrayals of people’s idyllic daytime rituals actually are.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EbsqXou5FeY

May 5, 2020

Homeschool Heroes

About twenty years ago,  I was invited to adjudicate a youth music competition in the Yukon.  Travelling to one of the northernmost inhabited spots on earth, I imagined that my greatest surprise might have been a polar bear or Northern Lights sighting.  But it turned out to be something entirely different.  Among the 25,000 residents of the thriving metropolis of Whitehorse exists a treasure trove of talent.  I could not believe the incredibly honed skills and nuanced expression with which these 11-18 year-olds played.   Wondering why, I developed a theory that I now call SLoW: Sheltered Living Wonder.  When long, dark days, cold climates or pandemics force people indoors, they tend to spend inordinate amounts of time on creative endeavors and skill development.  In other words, they slow down and take time for wonder.

This theory has surely applied during these past few months of sheltering in place.   One of the most remarkable examples has been the inventiveness that many of my friends have brought to their first attempts with homeschooling.   So, I wanted to give a few shout outs to some of these Homeschool Heroes and the highly imaginative projects they’ve done with their kids.

Stunning Easter Eggs made from natural materials and dye, by my friend Jane Cox and her kids  (Botany lesson)

Candy Covid virus, made by Amelia, my friend Jen Sanke’s daughter, as she learned about the virus’ proteins (Biology lesson)

But perhaps the prize for most complex homeschool project has to go to my architect friend, Bryn Davidson, who upon returning from Australia, in late March, had to fully quarantine for 2-weeks.  So, with his 5-year old son Bei as helper, this Physics lesson allowed him to enjoy home delivery beer while in isolation.  Just brilliant!

https://youtu.be/FF9-2dWoUtc

May 6, 2020

Living in livestream

So today, 5 million British Columbian’s awaited our “sentence” with baited breath, as word spread that our provincial prime minister would deliver the Re-Open BC plan at 3 pm.   I have to admit, it felt a bit like when you were “grounded” as an adolescent and then your parents returned certain privileges to you.  Of course, I’m well aware that our province has already been far more licentious than many places around the globe.  We’ve been fortunate to maintain reasonably low numbers of infection (just over 2,000), with counts as low as 8 new cases per day, at this point. So, while our provincial parks closed, our beaches never did.  While we were encouraged, within a reasonable range of home, to be active outdoors, we were not restricted to walks only within the 100 metre radius of our house, as my Israeli friends were.  And while we could still shop at gardening and furniture stores, to make sheltering at home more enjoyable, New Zealanders had nothing but grocery stores and pharmacies open, for two months.  

I have sensed the gratitude my fellow Vancouverites have felt about these privileges.  But that does not mean that we aren’t still anxious to return to other aspects of living which we’ve missed.  When lockdown began, ominously on the Ides of March (the 15th), I’d harboured a secret hope that certain restrictions might be lifted on my birthday (exactly two months later).  And it turns out that Phase Two of the BC ReOpen plan will commence on May 19th, just 4 days later than I’d hoped.  What I most look forward to experiencing again are small gatherings with friends, (we’ll soon be allowed to socialize in public with up to 10 people); meals inside certain restaurants and pubs (those that are able to function within WorkPlace BC’s safety regulations); visits to registered massage therapists; and hugs with select people, (”using one’s own ‘risk assessment’.”)

But in the long-range plan, the harsh reality for artists has been laid out, as Phase Four (which includes resuming large-venue concerts, conventions, and international travel) can not occur until either a vaccine has been developed, an effective treatment plan is widely available, or herd immunity is achieved.  And this is not estimated to occur until mid-2021 or later.  So, the prospects are still bleak for symphony orchestras, opera and dance companies, artists who perform in crowded bars, or musicians who travel for arena shows and festivals.  This likely means that in order to satisfy audiences’ need to access live performance, and for artists to continue to share their creativity,  livestream formats will still have to persist for some time.  Therefore, I thought I’d share a few regular weekly livestream arts events here, both from Vancouver, LA & NY.

Canadian National Live Art Champion, Dmitri Sirenko, who we featured at our non-profit’s annual benefit on February 20th, 2020

Every Monday Night at 7 pm PST (Vancouver) Poetry Slam: https://www.facebook.com/Vancouverpoetryslam/

Every Thursday at 5 pm PST (LA): LIVE Art Battles - Watch painters do their magic in just 20 minutes: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWJoWGVwzGtk99nTOCib9vg

Every Thursday at 8 pm EST (NY): Spotlight on Plays - famous actors perform readings of theatre pieces, online: https://www.broadwaysbestshows.com/post/the-best-of-series/

May 7, 2020

Collateral Blessings

So many thoughtful writers are adding to the discourse, as we all strive to make meaning from what can feel like a senseliess time.  I have so appreciated the abundance with which people are sharing these missives, right now.  Every day, bursts of inspiration or flickers of insight come my way, thru texts, emails and Facebook.  Like adventurers, traveling together thru the dark of night, we shine light on guideposts, anywhere we can find them, as we collectively quench each other’s thirst for wisdom.  

One of the most profound writings I‘ve recently discovered came from a stranger’s blog.  In The Examined Family, Courtney Martin, without ever diminishing the gravity of the havoc that this virus has wreaked, writes about some of the assets that have also come out of this time.  New friendships with neighbors.  A long-neglected puzzle completed with her kids.   The time to draw and truly notice an artichoke in her back garden. My good friend Juan calls these collateral blessings.  This reference to the accidental gifts that this cruel virus has given us, is a beautiful twist on “collateral damage”, a term coined to explain accidental friendly-fire deaths during the Gulf War.  Commenting on the anticipatory nostalgia that she projects she will feel about certain things, once this time has passed, Courtney writes:

“I instantly feel overwhelmed at the prospect of schedules and stuff. I don’t want to go back to our former accumulation or frenetic pace. I don’t want to stop texting (my neighbor) my little triumphs. I don’t want to forget about the artichokes in the garden. I don’t ever want to forget this happened--the grief and the beauty of it. I’m not even sure that will be possible, but if it were, I wouldn’t want it. I don’t want to vote like it didn’t happen. I don’t want to eat like it didn’t happen. I don’t want to consume like it didn’t happen. I don’t want to schedule like it didn’t happen. I don’t want to mother or daughter or befriend or neighbor like it didn’t happen. I don’t want to sit inside this little life, noticing and appreciating and breathing, like it didn’t happen. There is unnecessary suffering all around me, and inside of me, too, but there is also necessary meaning. May we hold on to that.”      

You can read her full entry here: https://courtney.substack.com/p/unnecessary-suffering-and-necessary?token=eyJ1c2VyX2lkIjo3OTg0NDcyLCJwb3N0X2lkIjozNzU1NDMsIl8iOiJCTnk2VyIsImlhdCI6MTU4NzA1MjgyMCwiZXhwIjoxNTg3MDU2NDIwLCJpc3MiOiJwdWItMjA5MjIiLCJzdWIiOiJwb3N0LXJlYWN0aW9uIn0.puI9NMne-783ypInpvTkJ96T237WcrTo2ItDhqlkMiY

May 8, 2020

Nostalgia

I’m rarely one prone to nostalgia.  My childhood photo albums are in storage.  I have no family heirlooms displayed in my home.  My tendency is to revel in the present or dream about the future.  But this pandemic has strangely turned me into a sentimental fool.  Perhaps this return to simpler times, where we seldom shop, where we wander mostly by foot, or where we get to know our neighbors better, makes us long for the past in certain ways.  

For me, I’ve honored this by resurrecting my daily teenage Twizzler habit - a candy I’ve rarely eaten since then, but that now feels so satisfying during my Netflix & Chill evenings (while watching films almost as old like Groundhog Day & Anchorman).  

I’m also listening a lot to Old School Hip Hop, where the explative-free rhymes of the 90’s feel so strangely innocent.  It’s refreshing to listen to these musicians spit verses that merely celebrate the joys of dance and rap, rather than ranting about gun violence and other societal ills.  Run DMC It’s Tricky (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-O5IHVhWj0) and Beastie Boys Body Movin’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvRBUw_Ls2o) happen to be personal favorites.  

Last month, I was tickled by an old memory while planting a lilac bush in my backyard.  I suddenly remembered a story about my college boyfriend, whom I hadn’t thought of in 30 years.  Our relationship started a bit secretively, so as not to hurt his ex’s feelings.  So, one May afternoon, we snuck away to a distant park that was hosting a Lilac Festival.  Unfortunately, our ruse was quickly spoiled when a candid photo of our picnic under the purple blooms was plastered all over the front page of the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle the next morning.  

Another sweet memory returned in culinary form. Every Tuesday, for 7 years, my mother selflessly drove me an hour from home and back, for my flute lesson.  And to break up the long drive, we regularly stopped at Bickford’s Pancake House for my favorite adolescent treat: breakfast for dinner. Their specialty was the Dutch Baby Apple.  And I finally made my first homemade attempt at this deceptively easy delicacy, last Tuesday.  

This has also been a time to return to bedtime stories (some I’ve read to friends’ kids, and others for adults to hear.)  The Great Realisation by British performance artist, Tom Foolery, has been making the social media rounds. But in case you missed this touching tale that looks back on this time as if the tale is being told in a not-so-distant future, it’s a wistful story about some aspects of modern life that we may never long for in the future:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nw5KQMXDiM4

[emurgency-festival-digital--blog]

(Em)Urgency Performance Symposium Program for Day 2

(EM)URGENCY - DAY 2  

BA Performance Arts – A First year showcase  

1pm-5:30pm  

On Listening

All the works presented today are a response to Text as Performance, a first-year unit that this term explored the theme of On Listening. Performance Arts is a course which brings together a range disciplines – and all the artists have responded in their own way to what has been presented during the term. No piece is the same, no artist is the same, and we present to you an eclectic mix of short and early work that may influence our later practice – this is our first public sharing as a cohort, so please speak to the artists and enjoy.

With thanks to: Third Year students on BA Performance Arts, Platform Southwark and Diana Damian Martin.

Durational works – in the studio  

Untitled Billy Buttars  

An exhibition of paintings, sketches, and other works that are reinterpretations of texts into visual forms. Exploring text in the language of art objects, and concepts of inspiration and influence.

Billy’s work surrounds concepts of personal influence and representation, as well as what radical really means in a temporal context and the impermanence of it all.

Gaze Joy Kincaid

Whose body is this  

As she looks at her  

With your eyes at her

As she sees herself

She sees what you see  

And then doesn’t see

So, she looks at herself  

And doesn’t look at herself  

This is not meant for you to watch?  

If watching was the only way

Then I ask you not to watch

I ask you to engage more then  

Your eyes and your hands

And your mind  

I ask you to see more then  

Her. I ask you to see yourself

And in her yourself is buried  

And in myself your eyes are burned  

So, I ask you not to watch  

But be born  

As she is born

Joy Kincaid is a multidisciplinary artist whose work is centred on deconstructing monolithic narratives on black and queer bodies within the interrelations of white spaces through radical acts of embodied contradictions, witnessing and shape shifting.

Family Jukebox Tom Dodd  

In the foyer and someone will wait, pick a mixtape? Choose your favourite song?  that I will then play for them. Songs chosen by the performer’s family members – take your pick and hear the soundtrack of someone’s life?  

Tom is a performer who hopes to work with sound and how sound affects people. The company Darkfield are one of his biggest inspirations and he looks forward to creating similar work. For tonight’s performance Tom will be looking at how sounds in the forms of songs affect different members of his family.  

Performances – on the stage  

What is the C word? Alicia Bridges

‘What is the C word?’ explores ideas of Consent in an abrupt, disassociated, inhumane way. From my own experience, I feel I have always been trying to connect the pieces together.

Content warning: references to sexual assault.

Alicia enjoys and is interested by multimedia performance, verbatim and immersive theatre. Throughout her degree she expects this will change and develop. She is excited by the prospect the next three years will give her to challenge her own artistic practice. She has previously worked with physical theatre and directing. 

Instagram: @alixiabridge

Voicemail   Jody Davies and Chloe Knowles

‘Voicemail’ is a physical theatre piece that reflects upon real-life experiences both artists have endured. These two different stories surround listening and lack there-of, where both artists reflect on unsent voicemails they wish they had sent.

Content warning: references to sexual and domestic abuse, emotional manipulation, explicit language.

Jody Davies is a Welsh performance artist with a background across musical theatre, physical theatre and experience in vocal coaching. Her interests include live art and photography but her works mainly consists and explores physical theatre and immersive projects.

Chloe Knowles is a performance artist from England.

She has experience in acting, writing as well as directing theatre for younger children between the ages 7-16 at Sonnets Theatre Club Newbury, John Rankin Junior School, and Cheam Private School.

Her Interests mostly include writing and directing.

When I was 5? Jaydon Merrick

An exploration of celebrity idolisation, jealousy and discarded dreams through a casual, reflective and participatory dance experience. Suitable for all skill levels, the less talented the better.

Jaydon is an Australian actor, writer and director. He has been living in the UK for 2.5 years now; in Australia, Jaydon’s work was heavily musical, and stage based, since moving to the UK his practice has become more film and screen orientated.

Nostalgia for a Time Gone Nowhere Evie Stopforth

I feel like I am constantly leaving a home behind. I know you inside out and they have no idea who you are. I’m three different people, and a stranger.

Evie Stopforth is a young performance artist investigating the relationship between audio and visual entertainment. She focuses in this piece on loneliness, homesickness and the feeling of being stuck in limbo.

It’s Your Birthday! Miel Celeste Nadam

‘It’s Your Birthday!’ is derived from a personal hatred of my own birthday. I regress into a somewhat younger and pinker version of myself, as the cracks of the present seep through.  

Miel is interested in the idea of nostalgia and objects behaving badly. For her, art is the most potent when humour is sprinkled into pain. Laughing can slip into crying.

Candidate 14 Grace Oskiera-Vooght

An examination for a job role that requires you to not react, talk or feel. You must detach yourself from human instincts: feelings. Will you pass or fail?

Content warnings: references to death and suicide.

Grace has a background in straight acting and is interested in the arts sector.  She is interested in writing, creating, directing and performing. She has a cross-arts practice taking inspiration from across many art forms, particularly performance. She is currently interested in exploring intimacy and relationships and the way it is performed as part of her arts practice.

The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek (Cancelled) Reena Black

This adaptation of 'The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek' explores the underlying, darker themes of the play. This piece will delve into the character's mind and bring the audience with her on her journey of confession.

Content warnings: references to death and mental illness.

Reena Black is a British actress, dancer and writer; she has been trained in classical and contemporary acting techniques for many years. Experimenting with different techniques has always been a passion of hers and she is continuing to do this through her degree in Performance Arts.  

Dès l’aube Irène Pawin

Look around. What can you hear? Smile. This experience is only for you. Put on the headphones. Only you will hear this story. You are truly special. Enjoy.

Content Warnings: mentions of death, suicide, and explicit content in some pieces.  

Irène is exploring her potentiality as an artist, and has been exploring writing her own work. Irène is particularly interested in oddness and queerness, the feeling of being out of place, of being foreign. Irène is an impulsive creator that never knows what her next obsession will be.

Dinner Time Cerys Salkeld Green

A piece focussing on the idea of intrusive thoughts and dealing with grief in opposition to modern life.  

Content warning: references to sex and sexual content

Cerys is interested in the boundaries between fact and fantasy.

Alexa Owen Whiteside-Ward

Alexa: With technology always advancing, what happens when technology makes certain advances?

Owen is a writer, director and performer from Norwich. He has a long history of musical theatre work as a performer and in the last few years has written directed and produced his own musical: this is something he is currently still doing, working on numerous other musicals. In addition to this Owen has taken a strong interest in writing plays and films and likes to create pieces that often leave the audience questioning. This is Owen’s first work outside of Norwich, which he is looking forward to.  

Email: owenww08@hotmail.com

Can you hear it? Esme Mai Davies

Can you hear it? Is an immersive piece that combines film, sound and live elements. What happens when you lose safety in your spaces?

Content warnings: mental health and panic

Esme as an artist is primarily interested in performance; her background is in traditional theatre. She is now exploring a mixture of performance, visual art and drag as well as working to incorporate technology and new mediums into her work.  

A train running on a jointed track   Ben Church

When we listen schematically, do we listen for the relation between sounds? Or is it something more? This piece aims to answer none of these questions.  

Ben Church is a performance artist with a multitude of different interests and fields of study. These range from more traditional acting at Stratford upon Avon’s RSC, to writing and co directing pieces of immersive theatre and teaching drama. More recently he has been looking into composition and how sounds gain meaning.

Why Are You Wearing That Stupid Man Suit? Anja Hendrichova

Dates first dates no dates first sex holding hands broken hearts brave knights crushed buses Czech girl singing jumping in the rhythm of love or no love the end.

Rather than viewing this piece as a criticism of any kind, feel free to laugh at me and / or with me.  Anja has the superpower to watch the same film or series 50 times. The more people to embarrass in front of, the less shy.  

Find your Bite Jack Gallagher

Find your bite tonight. I know you have it in you. Please.

Content warnings: references to sexual violence.

Breathe Tsen Day-Beaver

During this piece I focus heavily on the subject of panic within the body, documenting its reactions and tendencies, situating this subject in the event of a panic attack.

Tsen is an artist/performer from Scotland interested in performance within film and text-based work. She is currently focusing on composition of the body within performance and its relation to the mind.

displacement Jasmine Wright

Ripped away. It’s not homesickness, it’s yearning for a place that doesn’t exist anymore. Is home a place or a feeling, and how can I find it again?  

Jasmine is currently exploring ideas of unfamiliarity, strangeness, the body, and Asian heritage. She is really enjoying writing as/for performance. She is also interested in creating multimedia experiences and experimenting with artificial, anthropogenic, and naturogenic sounds and visuals. 

See with Sound Juan Salazar

A quick informational guide on maternity, nuclear fallout and social conventions. The piece explores themes of listening through imagination, primal instinct and tribalism in a post-war, ever-growing technological society.

Juan is an audio-visual artist.  He is interested in space, time, dreams, memory, metaphysics, meta-metaphysics, regular physics, and irregular physics.

Can you hear my silence? Molly Denbigh

When silence becomes too loud.

Feelings of anxiety and fear are felt by many but speaking up honestly about them is done by few. It’s difficult. Emotional. I ask myself the questions that we need to answer for ourselves. Do I truly belong?  Am I me?

Molly Denbigh is a performance artist with interests in immersive and physical theatre. She is also interested in fine art and musical theatre and would love to combine these different styles in future work.

The School Pen   Mia Lulham

A short immersive/interactive piece commenting on the learning difficulties neurodiverse children face when first entering the education system. The piece shows the struggles involved with “basic” tasks such as learning to read and write.

Mia is heavily interested in and influenced by dance, choreography and physical theatre as well immersive theatre, and aims to continue to use these influences in her developing practice.

The Voice James Brewer

A man must overcome his anxiety about how he sounds and goes through many different types of voices in order to pick the right voice that suits him most.

James is an actor and performance artist from East London who has worked with London Bubble Theatre and National Youth Theatre.

Can I be loud? Beth Timson

Can I be loud? Who Can be loud in spaces and why? Where can we be loud? An exploration of loudness in institutional, normative space and where queer and non-normative identities fit in to this.  

Beth’s work centres on community, feminism and queerness. Beth is a writer, theatre maker, spoken word artist and facilitator from East London, and an early career artist who has presented solo work at Shoreditch Town Hall and Battersea Arts Centre. Alongside studying for her degree at RCSSD, Beth is working, freelance in various capacities, ushering at The Yard Theatre, and as a Young Creative for All Change Arts.  Beth started out in community arts and her work centres on using performance to bring people together and spark conversations. Her work is deeply political and seeks to challenge normativity.

www.bethtpeform.wordpress.com

twitter: @BethBRT

(Em)Urgency Festival Digital Feed Noa Taylor in collaboration with the EFDF Collective

The (Em)Urgency festival digital feed considers the performativity of multimedia performance documentation performatively. We document the work of the (Em)Urgency Performance Symposium and publish the material on social media platforms during the event.  

Follow us on twitter: @em_urgency

[auntiegilli]

It was a pleasure this week to put some of my Kane Gallery artists (and Bristol artists I have blogged about) into the Prilic exhibition for the series of events organised by Impermanence Dance Theatre Company.  I caught up with one of my new Kane Gallery artists Ron.  His work is evocative, and it was great he made a sale at the exhibition.  Here is the work he has there till Saturday and an interview about his journey into art and why the exhibition was so personal for him.

Ron’s earliest memory of art was being physically punished by a nun at a catholic nursery, slapped on the knuckles with a wooden ruler for drawing with a pencil after being told to use a crayon.  He said  ‘I found a pencil easier – it would do what I wanted and crayons were too big! Since that time, I have been suspicious of those preaching peace and conformity through violence, though I was very young, it is a memory that has stuck, violence does that to you.’

Art, he says, has always been with him.   He has always drawn and made things, always seen shapes and objects in shadows and has always been an observer of people and colour of the mundane. ‘There has never been a question of how I got into art, more, how and why I avoided it when I did and do. Survival is a cruel mistress that drives a bitter and twisted satnav!’

When I asked him about he influences on his work he said it was a tricky question to answer ‘I love colour, I love contrast and details, I love expression and people, I love theatre and film, I love music, energy and the observation of emotion. I have been extremely privileged to have worked with heroes like Terry Brain and Dave Borthwick, people who oozed emotion and were a joy to work with, something I feel maybe the nuns took from me. Art is an outlet where you can express what is uncomfortable in normal life, I’m not sure I do this, but it is in us all and whether that emotion transfers is not for me to judge, but there is usually more than surface paint in a picture.’

I asked him about what he is looking forward to next year ‘Planning is not a strong point for me, life has a way of surprising you when you least expect it, reminding you of times gone, thoughts had and people met, things you wish you hadn’t done, that you wish you had and those of which you are glad. We all have regrets, but would we swap the experience we have had  for those chances missed – I think of this a lot!

It may just be age, but I don’t look at years or months  forward or back, we live in the now, and that is hard enough!’

About New years resolutions  he added ‘They are for the weekly minded, I can fail without planning or a timescale! Why give up the things you enjoy, I’m a smoking ex-smoker, I only smoke with those who smoke, the rest of the time I don’t – not a resolution, just a choice!’

He said that the Prilic exhibition, for him,  was an emotional journey as he had history with the building and with other artists exhibiting.  I asked him to tell me more ‘Before I went to University, I was involved and responsible for a lot of the Dance Centres publicity and spent time around the building as it was used for dance classes, music performances and also as theatre rehearsal space (including Bristol Hippodrome pantomimes). The Dance Centre had a constant battle for funding and retaining its presence as a community arts venue, and many avenues were looked into as a potential source of revenue to keep it alive and kicking. To see the Centre in its current condition of neglect, the stained ceiling tiles and peeling paint in a cold echoing shell, was moving and a contrast to the buildings warmth at its peak, and the excitement and joy of kids getting ready to go to classes.’

About the people he added ‘At University, I spent a fair bit of time hanging out with Emma Caton, also showing at The Prilic exhibition, opening night was the fist time I have seen her since leaving Uni.  We obviously had loads to talk about.’

Finally  what did he think of the Prilic exhibition: ‘I enjoyed the ambience of the event, the echoes of my past there and shared deep felt memories with persons present. I loved the diversity of art and raw energy of making it happen, the reminder that by being part of something, we make it happen. I got there late, but no less proud of being part of it.’

You can see the Prilic exhibition at Bristol Dance Centre, Jacobs Wells Baths, Bristol on till Saturday 16 December 2017.

Links

Read more about the exhibition here

See Ron’s prints available from The Kane Gallery

    Prilic – an artists private view of this public exhibition – Interview with Ron It was a pleasure this week to put some of my Kane Gallery artists (and Bristol artists I have blogged about) into the Prilic exhibition for the series of events organised by Impermanence Dance Theatre Company. 

[vileart]

Osama Bin Dramaturgy: Knaive Theatre @ Edfringe 2017

​

Explosive Osama Bin Laden Show Returns To Edinburgh Fresh From US Tour

“Tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

I am going to show you how to change the world”

BIN LADEN: THE ONE MAN SHOW returns to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival from 2nd-28th August at C (Venue 34).

The world’s most notorious terrorist tells his story in BIN LADEN: THE ONE MAN SHOW a remarkable, provocative and multi-award-winning production from Knaïve Theatre. 

The twist? Bin Laden is 28 years old, White British and charming as cream teas in summer. After a critically acclaimed and highly successful American Tour, this ‘must-see’ production returns to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, where it originally premiered, from 2nd-28th August before beginning a UK tour that includes The Royal Exchange Theatre, The Sherman and The New Wolsey.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

We don’t want to give away too much of the show, but what we can say is that we believe that the best theatre tries to understand the world, and even the most terrible actions within it. A quest for understanding was the starting point for this show.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas? 

We hope so! In our experience audiences are becoming more and more eager to see work that provokes them to discussion. Theatrical performance can – like very little else - combine the messy and personal with the universal and academic, the imaginative with the factual; and immerse you in a dialectic world of ideas, images and stories and confront you with things you might have never wanted to consider before. That, to us, provides very fertile ground for the public discussion of ideas – particularly ideas we might rather not discuss.

How did you become interested in making performance?

We were both engaged with performance making from a frighteningly young age. At age 3 Sam (the actor) spent whole days as his female alter-ego, Madam (complete with pearl necklaces and red leather handbags). He would also put on strange musical comedies with his two older brothers for their parents’ “benefit” which mostly involved Sam flinging himself about the living room trying to catch an imaginary cow and milk it. 

Tyrrell (the director) spent his early years refusing to wear anything but his Thunderbird Two costume and spent his university days (while apparently studying politics) refusing to do anything but theatre. We met in 2012 working for the Barbican Theatre in Plymouth and began making theatre together in 2013 with this show!

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?

This show came about through heartbreak, particularly awful accommodation in London and a lot of rum – a long story we will happily tell when asked! It was made through 3 months of intensive research, reading and watching everything we could lay our hands on related to Bin Laden. 

Then we locked ourselves away in various parts of the world (to stave off insanity) and experimented with the source material, wrote, improvised, invited some people to impart some thoughts with us and eventually we had something looking like a show and opened it – terrified – at the Buxton Fringe. Since then we have rewritten, developed and taken further risks every time we have taken the show out. So not a particular approach, more a desire to provoke the most exciting debate we can with the extraordinary story of this man.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?

We haven’t yet tied ourselves to an approach as a theatre company. We try to let the form be governed by how best to communicate the content of the piece. We have, since Bin Laden made immersive games-based theatre (Power To The North), a Dance-Theatre adaptations of Baal with Impermanence Dance Theatre, Public Understanding of Science Theatre (Pain, The Brain & A Little Bit of Magic) and we are currently working on an adaptation of 1936 apocalyptic Sci-Fi novel, War With The Newts, with writer Tim Foley. 

Although in form our work is broad, we have a very focussed intention which unifies all of the work we have created so far: to create dangerous theatre which engages and empowers audiences into vibrant discussions around the political dialectics of our time. 

What do you hope that the audience will experience?

The audience will experience, not just watch, an incredible story and a world-changing journey. We hope they will experience, as we have done, something that will change the way they view the world, perhaps in some small but very real way. 

We hope they will experience something they never expected. But mostly, we hope they experience an unforgettable evening that lasts far longer than the Edinburgh hour; long into the night with fellow audience members, and long into their lives as they share their experience with others.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?

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Let’s just say that we did a lot of research into American self-help culture…but what that means, you’ll have to come see to find out. The audience experience is still evolving, in front of our very eyes. The more we have performed the show (the 28th August is our 100th performance) the more we have realised that the audience experience is key to the success of the show. 

So we have crafted and honed that experience over 4 years, and it is still growing. Every time we tour the show we challenge our assumptions about the last time and challenge ourselves to see if we can go further.

With populist rhetoric playing an ever-increasing role in Western politics, Knaïve Theatre’s Tyrrell Jones and Sam Redway pry apart what it is that draws us to follow demagogues, asking if the world’s most wanted terrorist might have been more persuasive than we ever imagined. They ask audiences to re-examine their own information and prejudices from a naïve perspective, just as the company have.

The award-winning hit of the fringes in San Diego and Hollywood, Bin Laden returned home to perform a sell-out show at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester. Knaïve Theatre are now Supported Artists at the Exchange and have redeveloped the show with the help of the theatre’s creative team ready for a return to Edinburgh before the company’s first national tour.

Having provoked important and timely debate surrounding Middle East conflict and the War On Terror internationally, they will now bring that discussion to a national audience. Though they expected this story would become less relevant, current global tensions and recent events have galvanised an ever-increasing appetite for the debate they inspire.

Bin Laden was made in 2013 on a shoestring by Tyrrell Jones and Sam Redway. After previews in Buxton and London, it opened at Edinburgh and the show was awarded the first Broadway Bobby of 2013. It was in The List’s Top 5 Theatre Shows To See and received a host of first-rate reviews. Quickly, the show started selling out, and before long it was a hit. With the success of Edinburgh 2013 behind them, Tyrrell and Sam undertook formal training (Birkbeck MFA in Directing and RADA MA Theatre Lab respectively). They then redeveloped and toured the show, this time around USA with Arts Council AIDF funding.

AWARDS

Encore! Producer’s Award – Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016

Critic’s Pick Of The Fringe Award – Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016

Outstanding Actor in a Drama – San Diego International Fringe Festival 2016

Gold Award – Tvolution Los Angeles 2016

Broadway Bobby (Sixth Star) – Broadway Baby, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2013

Top 5 Shows at the Fringe ­– The List, Edinburgh 2013

​

Venue: C, Adam House, Chambers Street, EH1 1HR, venue 34, Edinburgh Festival Fringe

Dates: 2-28 Aug (not 15)

Time: 18:30 (1h00)

Ticket prices: £9.50-£11.50 / concessions £7.50-£9.50 / under 18s £5.50-£7.50

C venues box office: http://ift.tt/2tQxW68017/bin-laden-the-one-man-show or 0845 260 1234 

Fringe box office: www.edfringe.com or 0131 226 0000 

Full Tour Dates:

2nd – 28th August – C Venues, Edinburgh Fringe Festival

5th- 7th September – Royal Exchange Theatre

21st September – Square Chapel, Halifax

28th September – New Wolsey, Ipswich

5th October – CAST, Doncaster

19th- 20th October – Sherman, Cardiff

24th- 28th October – Bike Shed, Exeter

3rd November – Litchfield Garrick

9th- 11th November – Mercury, Colchester

from the vileblog http://ift.tt/2veZJAt

[larryland]

by Gail M. Burns

“While the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.”

– Mark Rothko

“What do you see?” is both the opening line and the penultimate one in John Logan’s play, Red, now on the boards at Oldcastle Theatre.

The difference between the fine arts – painting and sculpture – and the performing arts – theatre and dance – is that the former have a period of stasis, while the latter are constantly changing and completely ephemeral. They can be recorded via audio or video, but the live moment is there and gone. Even the people who experience a live performance each perceive it from their own physical, intellectual, and emotional point of view. When a painter puts down his/her brush and declares the work complete, then it stays in that form until time and the elements eventually destroy it. While each person views it through his/her individual lens, the object itself stays the same.

Logan presents the artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970) as a fragile and insecure man who lives for, with, and in his paintings. During the two year period 1958-1960 depicted in the play, Rothko, then in his mid-50s, was working on a series of murals for the swanky Four Seasons Restaurant in the newly constructed Seagram Building on New York’s Park Avenue, one of his first major and lucrative corporate commissions. Logan’s Rothko is beginning to feel the pressure of the new generation of artists coming up while facing the fact that his cohort is beginning to fade from public interest, and, in some cases, dead.

Logan’s Rothko spends almost all of the play looking at and talking about the series of large paintings he is working on for the Four Seasons. The audience doesn’t see any of Rothko’s work, but I include photographs of the existing paintings from the Seagram series, sections of which are currently on display in the Tate Modern Gallery in London, the Kawamura Memorial DIC Musuem of Art in Japan, and in the National Galley in Washington, DC, so that you can see that they are indeed predominately red.

At the Kawamura Memorial Museum of Art in Japan.

At the National Gallery in Washington, DC.

At the Tate Modern Gallery in London.

Rothko, played by Oldcastle stalwart Peter Langstaff, expounds endlessly and forcefully on the topics of art, color, impermanency, mortality, ambition, jealousy, and so much more to his hapless young assistant Ken, played by Brendan O’Grady, who made his Oldcastle debut as Edmund Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

I was surprised to learn that O’Grady’s character had a name, since Rothko never asks it of him nor refers to him by it. That right there establishes the non-existent relationship between the two men. Rothko talks, and Ken listens. When Ken talks Rothko generally tells him that he is wrong. Finally, Ken gives Rothko a good dressing down, which is quite cathartic for Ken and the audience, but it really is too little too late, and Rothko hears nothing.

While it won many awards in 2009/2010 when it first opened in London and then New York, Red is more of a “tell” than a show. Sometimes the judges of major theatre awards vote in favor of straight plays with lots of big words and ideas instead of actual drama, just as judges of musical theatre often reward spectacle over ingenuity and creativity. There are some really interesting ideas about art in the script, but there are so many that they zoom by, like being caught in a kaleidoscope of butterflies – individually they are beautiful and unique, but collectively they are overwhelming.

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I have seen and reviewed Red once before, and while it was a much more emotionally dynamic production, I still thought the play itself was overwrought. This time, without the emotional fireworks between the two men, I was far less intrigued. O’Grady actually brings more passion to his performance than Langstaff, while Rothko is clearly supposed to be an intellectual and emotional superior to the young painter. Ken is also a wholely fictional character, and yet we learn more of his backstory than Rothko’s.

The set by Wm. john Apperlee is both quite busy – there are tables full of painting supplies, a phone (rotary dial!), a coffee pot, etc. flanking the playing area – and very plain – the upstage walls are completely unadorned. Only in the central section of the play, the only part with any exciting physical activity to watch, Rothko and Ken paint a very large canvas red. They do so while a passage from Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” plays – part of Cory Wheat’s excellent sound design – and they must time it so that they finish painting as the music concludes, not two seconds before or two seconds after, but simultaneously. In the performance I attended they nailed it! I am sure they have the routine down pat and will hit their mark when you go too. It is a thrilling bit of theatre, and, alas, none of Oldcastle’s publicity shots feature it.

Rothko insisted on the lighting be very low in his studio, and so David V. Groupe has made it so on the stage for large chunks of the play. I often joke that some day I will forget to take off my sunglasses when I enter the theatre and complain needlessly that the lighting is very dim, well, my sunglasses were in my purse and the lighting WAS very dim. Be warned.

I found Ursula McCarty’s costumes to be sadly bland. There was nothing about the way the actors dressed that told me what time period this was or who they were. Granted, painting is a messy activity, and both the actors and the costumes have either a pinkish tinge or red splotches on them by the end of the play, so the costumes have to be washable and there may be multiples on hand in case of catastrophe, but particularly in the early scenes, when character, time, and place are establish and before the paint starts flying, a little more period detail would be helpful.

There are many highly over-rated, award-winning plays out there, and sadly Red is one of them. While it does pose some fascinating questions about art and creativity, it ultimately lacks action and interest.

Red by John Logan, directed by Eric Peterson  ]runs Jun 7-23, 2019 at Oldcastle Theatre Company, 331 Main Street in Bennington, VT. Set design by Wm. John Auperlee, lighting design by David V. Groupe, sound design by Cory Wheat, Costume design by Ursula McCarty, stage management by Gary Allan Poe. CAST: Peter Langstaff as Mark Rothko and Brendan O’Grady as Ken. The show runs 90 minutes with no intermission and would be boring to kids under 14.

Tickets

https://oldcastletheatre.org/

      REVIEW: “Red” at Oldcastle Theatre Company by Gail M. Burns “While the authority of the doctor or plumber is never questioned, everyone deems himself a good judge and an adequate arbiter of what a work of art should be and how it should be done.”

[onlyskintheatre]

FEATURE: SCRATCH #7 // Artist Bios

Jamie Bolland

I am an amateur poet. A choke poet. I look for words that will get stuck. And although I appreciate the movement, I am not a stuckist. I have made some books using collage combined with poetry and some of poetry alone. And have made some efforts to perform these live but this is still an area of experimentation for me. I have published a few through my own press Slo-Mo Books as well as other artists and writer’s work. I have had a couple of experimental pieces published in the Burning Sand and have contributed work to group shows at the bookshop Good Press in Glasgow.

I am also a musician and performer with the band Tut Vu Vu. Alongside our work as a band we have developed wider pieces using art, video and performance. Most recently we have worked on an adaption of Erik Satie’s proto-dada play Le Piege de Meduse for Take Me Somewherewith the absurdist sculptor Morven Mulgrew.

Max Chase

I’m a writer working between Dundee and Glasgow, previous experience is primarily in amateur work with a bent towards stories that sit outside of normal reality. I’m interested in exploring the human experience in relation to the supernatural, the paranormal and the strange. I currently run an online writing website as well as participating in the Traverse Young Writers programme.

In November last year I brought a piece (Powder, Silt, Scrape) to Only Skin alongside Sam Skoog and Norliza Matheson under The Spine. I’ve written in several mediums, including radio/podcast, short prose and playscript. recent works include Taste of Tomorrow (2016, Radio); Life Cycle of an Imaginary Friend (2016, Scratch); ll Était Une Fois (2016, Prose); Powder, Silt, Scrape (2016, Scratch); and Citizen of Glass (2017, Scratch).

Sònia Gardés

I’m a visual and performance artist from Barcelona living in Scotland since 2015.

My career started ten years ago as a make-up artist for cinema and theatre. Within that experience, I had the pleasure to work with DDT sfx, winners of an Oscar for The Pan’s Labyrinth, in the films Los Abrazosrotos, by Pedro Almodóvar (2009) and Agora, by Alejandro Amenábar (2009).

I then studied Fine Arts and specialised in sculpture from a very theatrical point of view, and started developing giant puppets for street theatre as part of Minairons PT, the company I started with another colleague from University. As part of that company we managed, designed, made and assembled the sets for the Roman Festival of Guissona in 2012, 2013, and 2014.

Once I graduated, I started working at the University of Barcelona as a Professor teaching sculpture with textiles, installation and performance where I stayed from 2013 until 2015. On the same year, I became the Head Manager of make-up, hairstyle and costume for Circus Cabaret, a show that was in Astoria Club (Barcelona) for nine months.

After that, I moved to Scotland and started developing my own shows and my skills as a performer and puppeteer. Since then, I have presented one performance of physical theatre for the Conflux’s Pitch in 2016 and I have developed Puppet-Led Yoga together with Charlotte Allan and Beth Frieden, a storytelling show that is followed by yoga instructions and positions related to the story, told by a Bunraku puppet.

Chris Owen

Throughout my practice, I’ve been building a vocabulary of movements and performance gestures that complicate an audience’s relationship to representations of queer culture particularly in reference to club culture and hedonism. By moving the body unnaturally slowly, contorting or lighting it, I hope to present the viewer with an unfamiliar and often uneasy image that prompts an examination of the world it inhabits. Through using elements such as light, music and tempo, I aim to pull in strangely entangled themes of sex, awkwardness, pathos and drama

My work has recently been inspired by the culture or experiences I found when spending time in Berlin’s infamous techno and queer club, Berghain. I went on a research trip to the nightclub last year as part of my university course, where I managed to persuade the art school to fully-fund me for the trip, which I hope served as a conceptual work in itself. I hoped to demonstrate how the life found within the sex fuelled club was an interesting and worthwhile culture to investigate. Since then I spent a month in Berlin in the summer where I spent a lot of time in the club a lot and have been trying to document my experiences since then as. The club has a strict rule of no photography inside and therefore I’ve been creating little choreographies where I hope to create a feel of the atmosphere and memory. The work has been working in dialogue with techno music which I have been collecting and researching.

Max Scratchmann

Max Scratchmann is an accomplished storyteller and poet.  He was a hit at last year’s Fringe in Edinburgh in the Shadows with Alec Beattie, and has performed at numerous other festivals including Hidden Door, the Imaginate Children’s Festival, the Kelburn Garden Party, the Glasgow Comedy Festival, the Edinburgh Celtic Festival and the Merchant City Festival.  He is also an award-winning illustrator and was a competitor in the 2017 Scottish Poetry Slam Final. Additionally, Max is the creative director of the performance poetry company, FREAK Circus, ranked number 83 in The List’s Hot One Hundred for 2016.

Annie Lowry Thomas

My practice is concerned with the performance of everyday. Since graduating I’ve made performances about auditions, dates, clubbing, and usually my performances explore the inherent theatricality of common scenarios.

The fact that I studied theatre theoretically rather than practically I think is reflected back in the style of performance I make, which is usually rooted in theory and quite self-aware. I tend to make use of text, both projected and spoken, projection, and various levels of fakery, pop culture references etc.

I usually feature in my work as a performer, as well as a deviser, writer, and director. In the past I have collaborated with other performers, but the performance I am proposing for this scratch night is the very first stage of a solo piece I am developing. I have performed at Buzzcut, TheArches, CCA, most recently Sleazys, and of course, Only Skin. I’ve had extracts of my writing performed at Stage to Page and the Toasted Fiction podcast series. I am currently a member of the collective GTAC and Tron 100.

I would describe myself as a feminist performer, although so far my work has not overtly focused on gender issues. This is something I am hoping to explore in the new piece. I recently performed in FMIN’s piece at Buzzcut this year, an exploration of women, community and ritual, which coincides with my own re-examination of the relationship between my feminism and performance practice.

Ross Whyte

I am a composer and sound artist, originally from Aberdeen and currently based in Glasgow.  I completed a practice-based PhD in composition at the University of Aberdeen where my field of research was concerned with impermanence in audio-visual intermedia.  

I am a keen collaborator and have been composing music for dance for several years now.  I have written scores for works by choreographers including Jack Webb, Rob Heaslip, Thania Acaron, and Matthew Hawkins.  Together with Thania Acaron, I formed the Orphaned Limbs Collective – a group focused on site-specific dance and dance theatre.  More information can be found here: www.orphanedlimbs.com.

Most recently, I have been collaborating with Gaelic singer-songwriter Alasdair Whyte (no relation) under the moniker WHɎTE.  Our debut album, Fairich, was released in October 2016.  The album contains ambient electronic arrangements of 17th and 18th century Gaelic songs as well as original compositions.  Fairich has gained positive reviews, regular national radio airplay, and several “Album of the Week” selections (including Scotland on Sunday, Celtic Music Radio, BBC Radio nan Gàidheal). More information on WHɎTE can be found here: www.whytenoise.co.uk.

In both my solo and collaborative work, I combine field recordings, “found” sounds, and synths to create ambient textures and soundscapes. My most recent solo project is   titled Degrees of Separation – a work-in-progress which was developed in Sri Lanka as part of the UZ Arts/Suramedura residency.

[auntiegilli]

It has been a pleasure to bring work together for some amazing Bristol artists to join the other artwork and events at Prilic. Here is just a small sample of the work from Stepehen Quick, J.West, John Curtis, Grise Malayerba, Jimmer Willmott, Mary Rouncefield, Sophie Long, Zase, Decay, Julian Quaye, Ron, Nick Harvey and DIFF.  We also have work from DNT and Paul Sargent.

I had a chat with Josh from Impermanence Dance Theatre company about how the exhibition came about.

1. How did Prilic come about?  PRILIC has come about with the news that Jacobs Wells Baths (or Bristol Dance Centre) is going to be turned into a leisure centre next year… ‘We’ve organised PRILIC as a way to commemorate the Baths and it’s history, offer local people making art an opportunity to exhibit their work, raise a question around what we consider to be private and public at this moment, and ring out 2017.’

2. What is happening with Jacobs Wells Baths? In March ’18 Fusion Lifestyle will begin the long and drawn out process of turning it into a leisure centre of some description, which we and many others are very dissappointed about. Of course there are worse things in the world than a swimming pool and gym, but our concerns and grievances are around three main points. Firstly, a Community Asset Transfer should in theory place City Council properties in the care of local communities when the council can no longer afford to run them… with the intention being to empower local communities and keep buildings owned by the city in public use. The Baths have been given to Fusion Lifestyle – an Essex based nationally active organisation with a multi-million pound turnover who pay their top people in excess of £200k and have property all over the country. In one sense they will provide what much of the local community have asked for – and we know many people are ecstatic about the proposed new swimming pool – but, it will be run by a group who have absolutely no ties, links or real commitment to Bristol, aside from winning new contracts and making more money. Secondly, there is the long standing problem of Dance in Bristol… for those that know, it is a problem that has been around for a very long time, and for some bizarre reason, Bristol has got less on offer to support dance, as an art-form and activity for everyone to participate in then almost every other city in the UK… Swindon for example has far better provision, as does Bath Ipswich and Newcastle. Loosing the Jacobs Wells Baths at a time when austerity is still the tune of the day and investment for buildings in the arts is hard to come by, means that the development of dance in Bristol suffers another massive setback. Thirdly, this decision feels like part of a changing tide in how we think about public provision… with the NHS being sold off bit by bit, so the analogy is complete with companies like Fusion Lifestyle picking up buildings around the country when Councils can’t afford to run them. It’s privatisation via the back door, as a result of the conscious underfunding Councils have to deal with, it seems to us to be part of an idealogical transfer of wealth from the state to individuals, which is both sad and unsettling for the future. 3. What will be happening over the event? Please see our lovely flyer…

4. What are impermanence doing? We’re going to be in the space from the 11-15th, working on some new material that we’ll share on Friday. We’d like to invite anyone who is interested to join us and have a conversation or join in with making some work.

5. Anything else? A huge thank you to Karen Van Hoey Smith (and you Gilli!) for support in putting the event on, and to all the incredible people who have exhibited work. It’s amazing to see how many people engage with the arts and are excited by opportunities to share what they’ve done. I hope we can find new spaces and ways to do so in the future.

  Links

More about Prilic

More work from Kane Gallery artists at Prilic

  PRILIC a new exhibition raising questions around what we consider to be private and public at this moment – interview with organiser Josh Ben-Tovim It has been a pleasure to bring work together for some amazing Bristol artists to join the other artwork and events at Prilic.

[vileart]

Chekhov's Dramaturgy: Paul Davies @ Edfringe 2017

Seagulls flock to Leith in a breathtaking theatre piece by Fringe radicals Volcano Theatre

Chekov's The Seagull is stripped back and performed in 45 tonnes of water in a disused Church in Leith. 

Listings Information

Seagulls

The Leith Volcano (Venue 183)

8-26 August (not 14, 21) 18:00 

Tickets: £12/£6

This radical reinterpretation and award winning design comes from Welsh company Volcano Theatre. Jawdropping theatre on the fringe of the Fringe.

What was the inspiration for this performance?

A man called Rob came up to me in the Gym and said do you like Chekhov and over the puffing, the grunting and stretching we had a wonderful conversation about Chekhov and I thought afterwards not only should I get fit but I should read Chekhov too so I went away and did the reading.  So really the inspiration was the accidental meeting of minds and people.

Is performance still a good space for the public discussion of ideas?

Not always as sometimes pure entertainment can drown out any presentation of ideas – and of course ideas on their own can be rather tricky, if not, dull to perform. 

But yes performance is still a good space for the performance of ideas. We or at least I am not interested in discussing ideas – seminar rooms seem the best place to discuss ideas – or coffee shops. But performance does need to interrogate, dispute, ridicule, support and contradict ideas.

How did you go about gathering the team for it? 

I wanted to use, primarily, people I have never worked with before so we could explore new things in new ways. And that was great. Practically I auditioned people and went to look at designers work.

How did you become interested in making performance?  My Dad got me a job in a steel works when I was 16 and that was tough. Eventually I found my way to University and read Politics. Occasionally I went to the theatre but I couldn’t understand what and why they were acting.  So I then started to make quite hard, physical shows. They were probably not very good, but people seemed to like them and so I continued.

Is there any particular approach to the making of the show?  No every show is different. But mostly the start is about sniffing the air and travelling in the direction in which there is an odour that you can’t quite recognise.

Does the show fit with your usual productions?  In so far as it embodies the above yes. It is surprising, unusual and pleasurable and this latter idea is important.

What do you hope that the audience will experience?  You never can tell what another human being is experiencing, I guess that is why people find it difficult to live together – notwithstanding this I think I would like the audience to really enjoy the extravagance of the show, the pleasurable mise en scene.

What strategies did you consider towards shaping this audience experience?  It is intimate and we move them= audience  around once and the actors climb over them with very little covering their bodies so hopefully this enhance the audience’s sense that this is a live (pleasurable) experience.

The spirit of a rebellious Fringe is alive and well in South Wales as Volcano Theatre return to Edinburgh with Seagulls a deconstructive adaptation of Chekhov’s  The Seagull. Chekhov’s ‘rough stage’ by a lake has become, in this lean and imaginative reworking, a simply constructed stage and sturdy frame in the nave of a derelict church, adjacent to a flooded chancel. 

A charismatic young cast moves through and above the audience by means of ropes, physical vigour and sheer effrontery. Created especially for the company’s new home - the atmospheric and evolving Bunker Theatre, deep inside a former Iceland frozen food store in Swansea High Street, in Edinburgh the company will welcome audience members to the equally atmospheric former St James' Church in Leith, renamed the Leith Volcano for the Fringe as part of an ongoing partnership between Volcano and The Biscuit Factory.  Seagulls is one of a number of ambitious projects to be staged at this new venue. Other highlights include Cryptic’s extraordinary Tesla-coil spectacular XFRMR (pronounced transformer), Impermanence Dance Theatre’s Sexbox, and Flying Atoms – a playful exploration of forces and matter from fellow Welsh company Powys Dance.

Director Paul Davies' production pares down the cast from the original story to five characters whilst still maintaining the the complex series of love triangles and focusing the action around key moments. The result puts the strength and energy of the ensemble to the fore as actress Irina, her lover esteemed writer Trigorn, her son playwright Konstantin, his crush fledgling actress Nina and family physican Dr Dorn lives and loves collide. Seagulls retains the dysfunctional, melancholic, frustrated, unheroic temperament of Chekhovian drama, whilst bringing to the fore its humour and absurdity and stripping the veneer of politeness from much of the conflict.

Working closely with choreographer Catherine Bennett as Movement Director the characters fly across the stage and amongst the audience as music ranging from Arvo Part to The Clash to The Durutti Column to Frank Sinatra soundtracks the action.

Seagulls is the latest in Volcano Theatre's series of 'radical classics' which have included a mashup of the early works of Ibsen, L.O.V.E the critically acclaimed staging of Shakespeare’s Sonnets, two Macbeths, a reality-TV Romeo & Juliet as well as works by Coward and Ayckbourn. Seagulls is appearing in the British Council Edinburgh Showcase and has been selected for the World Stage Design Festival in Taipei. It received nominations in five categories in the Wales Theatre Awards: Best Production, Best Design, Best Director, Best Female Performance in English (Mairi Phillips), Best Male Performance in English (Chris Elson).

Seagulls | A stage production by Volcano Theatre promotional video from Volcano Theatre on Vimeo.

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