#i literally work at a NEW WORKS THEATRE COMPANY we only produce CONTEMPORARY ART but i'm so bad at reading new shit

[covenofthearticulate]

Have you decided what your fav characters’ favorite plays are?

NO I'M TOO OVERWHELMED LMAO HELP!! Okay but here are some thoughts about what sort of theatre I think they enjoy:

Lestat: Obviously since he got his start doing commedia dell'arte I think he'll always have a soft spot in his heart for those old comedies. (Honestly, I think Lestat is one of the only vampires who enjoys "lowbrow" comedy and I love that for him.) The style of traveling street theatre Lestat would've been performing during his time as Lelio was largely improvisational, and though it moved into a more scripted form over time, I think Lestat is an improv queen. I also get all giddy and happy thinking about his reaction to the fact that commedia dell'arte is still performed today! Like, I did a production of Servant of Two Masters in college lmfao it's still viewed as one of the foundational tenants of theatre to this day and I think that would really tickle him.

He's also a Shakespeare fan but historically speaking we know Lestat would've had to have read French translations which of course weren't impossible to come by, but given all of Lestat's circumstances in his early life (poor, uneducated, etc) it's definitely worth noting that he would've had to have worked hard to get at Shakespeare. I think it's so funny that his favorite play in canon is Macbeth and that he sees himself as Macbeth, whereas Louis and Claudia totally saw him as Lady Macbeth (which is why I wrote a lil ficlet about it LOL)

Okay LASTLY I also just want to say I think Lestat loves loves LOOOOVE restoration comedy and the comedy of manners that was a little before his time but just really focused on like. Outrageous comedy and satire. Lestat likes to laugh, okay!! He loves Moliere just as much as he loves Shakespeare! Tartuffe and She Stoops to Conquer are definitely plays he can quote by heart.

Armand: Shakespeare, yes, but very specifically: Jacobean Revenge Tragedies. These were a lot darker, a lot more hardcore and angsty (as the title suggests!). One day I'll have to get Armandblr's input for some meta and psychological background as to why Armand would be obsessed with plays where the protagonist is wronged so egregiously that they go down a path of murder and (gruesome, often cannibalistic) bloodshed and rage-induced hysteria that ultimately ends in their own demise. But for now I'll just say that I feel it in my bones. I think he staged The Spanish Tragedy at least a few times at the Theatre des Vampires.

Also I think he'd definitely be into theatre of the absurd, especially in his Devil's Minion era! He goes through phases where he really leans into the existentialism and finds it amusing and thought-provoking, but sometimes it also majorly fucks him up (similar to Lestat)

Louis: He's a Romantic at heart, and certainly he loves the classics, but we've already been over Shakespeare so I'll say that I also think Louis has a soft spot for the American canon. Think Tennessee Williams, Arthur Miller, Eugene O'Neill, etc. He's a modernist girlie, and I think those plays would be a good guiding light into understanding modern America for Louis. I think Louis often sees middle class America as a fascinating subject to study (rather than, like, a reality that real people live), and I think modernist plays are really good at toe-ing the line of like, being deeply humanizing and beautiful and tragic if done right, and also still being somewhat performative and maybe even a bit artificial and contained behind a fourth wall. I think that dichotomy would be fascinating to Louis. His favorites would be A View from the Bridge and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Marius: Unfortunately there are like 0 Roman tragedies that survived in writing, but we know that they existed and were actually slightly different than Greek tragedies in that the characters actually voiced more of their internal psychological conflict, and also apparently the playwrights were influenced by the development of new rhetorical theory, so a lot of the writing incorporated like public persuasion. So I do think Marius would've been into those but listen I also happen to know for a fact that Marius' favorite play is Shakespeare's Coriolanus. He told me himself. I just read over the wiki synopsis to refresh my memory and I'm losing my mind over this line: "The two tribunes condemn Coriolanus as a traitor for his words and order him to be banished. Coriolanus retorts that it is he who banishes Rome from his presence." like PLEASE that's so petty I love it. Real talk though Marius loves a good political drama and look I know I've brought up Shakespeare a lot in this post already but no one is doing it like him, especially with the Romans!!

Daniel: he's a theatre of the absurd queen <3

[hamishmacpherson]

Dance Theory and Practice (Lecture)

This is something based on a presentation I gave to MA students at the London School for Contemporary Dance about research in November 2017. I used it as a chance to think about the relationships between practice and theory. I wonder if it might seem a bit condescending but this is really how I talk to myself and this was a way for me to try and get things a bit clearer in my own head.

First off I wanted to get my head around what research is. It’s something about finding stuff out. Like Googling maybe? Or what journalists do for example? These are forms of research but I’m specifically talking about research in the context of academia. Maybe this is what academia is: ways of finding stuff out that has some consistency and rigour; or agreed ways of finding out stuff. And it’s something about creating new knowledge - so more than just finding any stuff out.

To get doctorate for example you need to make new knowledge (like say something or discover something that hasn’t been articulated or found previously). Up to that point in academia all the way from school, research is generally about summarising existing knowledge.

Julian Klein in an article ‘What is Artistic research’ writes about how research needs to strike a balance between tradition and innovation; between connecting with other people’s research, and developing new material. “Tradition without research would be blind takeover, and innovation without research would be pure intuition.”

There are different types of research for example scientific, historical, artistic, economic and business. To illustrate some of these different types I’m going to use some made up research questions relating to dance and repetition, which is a common enough subject in dance. In doing so I’ll be showing about how academic research forms part of dance. 

SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH involves coming up with a hypothesis and then gathering data: is the hypothesis disproved or supported (it’s never proved) by the data? The method has to be repeatable. A scientific research question might be something like this (I’m pulling these questions off the top of my head): 

TrinityLaban seem to do a lot of scientific research about dance for example. Their dance science department looks at optimising elite performance and researching impact on other people who dance. Dance for Parkinsons is another quite well known area of research at the moment. Or think of Matthias Sperling working with psychology researchers to use dance as a means to study how moving together is linked to liking each other.

This brings us to the distinction between BASIC (sometimes called pure) research and APPLIED research.

Basic research might involve something like developing scientific theories and might be thought of as being driven by curiosity.

Applied research however has a specific political or business drive to address specific problems, for example researching a new product that a company wants to sell.

In reality these two things are not distinct and there might be different motives and interests running through any research activity. And these might shift over time.

Andrew Simonet is a choreographer that wrote a book called Making Your Life As an Artist.

In it he writes (this is long quote but a good one):

“I think of artists like scientists. Just like scientists, we begin with a question, something we don’t know.

We go into our studio and research that question.

Like scientists, at the end of our research, we share the results with the public and with our peers.

Some research is “basic,” useful primarily to other researchers. Some is “applied,” relevant to everyday life.

Both are essential. And most artists do some of both, creating experimental work that pushes the form as well as work that is more broadly relevant.

Just as in science, a negative result is as important as a positive result.

Finding that a certain drug does not cure cancer is a crucial discovery. And an artistic experiment that fails produces important information.

When you are working beyond what is known, when you are questioning assumptions that haven’t been questioned, you generate a lot of useful failure.

Failure in science and art is a sign that the process is working.

Though certain scientists win the Nobel Prize and get famous, all scientists know they are standing on the shoulders of thousands of researchers all over the world who have been asking questions.

And while some artists will get the fancy awards (and maybe even get on TV), we know they are standing on the shoulders of thousands of artists who have been doing artistic research for decades.

In art, as in science, there is an element of faith. Scientists don’t enter the lab saying,

“I will cure cancer.” They say, “If I join the thousands of researchers asking rigorous questions about cancer, discoveries and breakthroughs will be made.” In science and in art, you cannot say in advance that this experiment will lead to this result.

But we artists know that if we join the thousands of artists asking rigorous questions, the world will change.

It always has.

The scientific method and the artistic process are the two most robust problem- solving methodologies ever developed. Take either one away, and our world would be unrecognizable.

Look around you: every object, every surface, every technology was created, re ned, and designed using the scientific method and the artistic process.”

OK, now let’s look at some other areas of research, moving to HISTORICAL. This could be looking at original sources, conducting interviews etc. to understand history of something, for example:

HUMANITIES is another field of research. Humanities research is less about right or objective answers and more about looking at the issues around more ‘factual’ events.

We need to remember that science and historical are not ways of finding out absolute truths. They are subject to cultural, personal and structural biases of those who construct this knowledge. Often dominated by white European men. Not to say these are just opinions but nor are they absolute truths.

Lot of the popular research relating to contemporary dance is in the humanities.

FEMINIST EPISTEMOLOGY and DECOLONISATION are two examples of sort of meta-research projects that examine and seek to undo these biases.

Another key term in humanities research is HERMENUTICS which is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Modern hermeneutics includes both verbal and non-verbal communication as well as semiotics. 

Okay let’s move onto PRACTICE BASED research. In this sort of research, creative works are considered both the research and the object of research itself. Practice based research can be non-artistic too.

A practice based research relating to dance and repetition might look like this and involve making and reflecting on different works that use repetition:

Okay, so what is the relationship between PRACTICE and THEORY?

Henk Borgdorff in The conflict of the faculties : perspectives on artistic research and academia describes four perspectives for thinking about this relationship.

1) THE INSTRUMENTAL PERSPECTIVE (music mostly - no pun intended “suggests that ‘theory’ serves the creative process or performance practice in the arts. This viewpoint, predominant in professional arts schools, understands theory first of all as a body of technical professional knowledge. Each art discipline thus has its own ‘theory’ – instrumental knowledge specific to the craft, needed to practise the art form in question.

Examples are the theory of editing in film, the theory of harmony and counterpoint in music (...) 

This might, for instance, involve research into a specific use of materials in visual arts, dramaturgic research into a theatrical text, or even the current fad of applying information technology in artistic practice.”

2) THE INTERPRETIVE PERSPECTIVE “holds that theory provides reflection, knowledge, and understanding with respect to artistic practices and products. Historically, this view is associated with academic disciplines like theatre studies and musicology, which try to facilitate understanding of artistic practice from a certain ‘retrospective’ theoretical distance.”

Here some examples of theory that are currently popular for interpreting dance:

It’s worth remembering that practice can be acknowledged/ made visible in theoretical reflection through CITATION; events, performances, workshops and other things can be referenced in written academic texts just like articles and book.  

3) THE PERFORMATIVE PERSPECTIVE holds that: “theory itself is a practice, and that theoretical approaches always partially shape the practices they focus on. Whether we are dealing with the theory of linear perspective, classical rhetoric, the twelve-tone technique, set theory in serial music, or insights into the cultural meanings and societal functions of art, the performative power of theory not only alters the way we look at art and the world, but it also makes these into what they are.

That art practitioners can be sceptical about theory – even to the point of developing a misplaced aversion to it – is perhaps not just because some theories seem far afield from the actual practice of art, but also because the performative power of theory competes with the performative power of art. On the other hand, thinkers about art who take unnecessarily reticent or aloof attitudes towards artistic practice (especially that of the present day), and who develop their own codes to institutionally protect their ‘profession’ from artistic practice, may be exhibiting a similar perception.”

4) THE IMMANENT PERSPECTIVE holds that: “All practices embody concepts, theories, and understandings. Artistic practices do so in a literal sense, too – no practices and no materials exist in the arts which are not saturated with experiences, histories, or beliefs.

“Creative processes, artistic practices, and artworks all incorporate knowledge which simultaneously shapes and expands the horizons of the existing world – not discursively, but in auditory, visual, and tactile ways, aesthetically, expressively, and emotively.This ‘art knowledge’ is the subject, as well as partly an outcome, of artistic research as defined here.

Another way to think about this is to think that the human mind - and all its abstract structures and concepts - is rooted in the human body. This is the underlying hypothesis of the field of embodied cognition.

Philosophy occurs within and through particular physical activities even if that activity is sitting still. Different physical practices enable different modes of thinking.”

I then proposed some readings to thinking about these things further before a seminar on the subject (that I did not run). I will post these next.

[thelondonfilmschool]

INTERVIEW with Newcastle-based and one-of-a-kind filmmaker: Benjamin Bee

Writer/Director Benjamin Bee graduated from London Film School in 2015 and moved back to his home town of Newcastle Upon Tyne, where he’s continued to hone the unique brand of personal- tragi-comedy which has seen his films screened at some of the world’s biggest film festivals and attracted the likes of Mike Leigh to his Crowdfunding videos. Ben turns his own life story into art, and it’s not hard to see why – within minutes of meeting him I’d been told an anecdote involving an axe, a crazed lunatic and a carton of banana milkshake. Below is the publishable version of Ben’s take on the North-South divide, his time at LFS and what it is that makes his ‘bonkers’ stories so universal.

S.M: Can you tell me a bit about your life before applying to London Film School?

B.B: I left school in Newcastle when I was 14 without any qualifications, and then I went to an access to college course. They did photography and had an old, broken VHS video camera, and with the people that I met there we started making comedy, stupid little films. They were unscripted, and weirdly I used that to get into the University of Westminster to do Contemporary Media Practice. That was in 2002, and then at the end of that course I made a short film called The Plastic Toy Dinosaur, which was produced by Rob Watson who’s an NFTS producing grad who’s doing really well now. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, I wrote it when I was 21 and I directed it when I was 22. I moved back to Newcastle and started working in a bar, but I hated it and I was miserable and the only thing I realised I had was this short film. I didn’t know about anything, I didn’t even know Cannes or Sundance existed. 

So, I just started entering it in places that I found and one of them was the BBC3 New Filmmaker of the Year Award. There were tons of submissions and they selected it down to the last ten. It was actually a really good year – Alice Lowe had written and starred in one of them, and Sean Conway had a film as well, he writes for Ray Donavan now. It was nice because people started to screen the film and it seemed like they liked it and it resonated with audiences, but I still had no idea what I was doing and I was incredibly naïve. I mean, seriously dyslexic and had the reading and writing age of an 8-year-old. Not going to school probably didn’t help. So, I was kind of lost. I started working a theatre box office and I worked, like, 60 hours a week and tried to save money. And then I saw a Skillset bursary advertised. I’d always looked at LFS but I couldn’t afford the fees, but eventually after I’d saved some money from my job I applied and I got the bursary.

S.M: What did applying for that involve?

B.B: It’s based on previous work and it’s means tested so you basically have to be poor and talented, or at least fake them into believing that you have some form of talent (laughs). I think I had something to say, coming from a slightly different background, and all my stories are weirdly personal. You go in front of a panel and when I got called back I literally cried like a small child. And then I went to LFS! It was interesting and difficult and there were people from so many different walks of life. I learnt the craft of filmmaking – I tried to eat up everything. 

The most important thing for me was the people – you’re surrounded by people who are really passionate about film. It’s two years surrounded by people who’ll put a lot of effort in, and I met a lot of people who had a lot of fun making films that I’m really proud of. I did a film called Step Right Up when I was there, which was my Term 4 exercise. We had 36 minutes of film stock to make a nine-minute film and it was screened at 40 film festivals. We got long-listed for the BAFTA, which means we were down to the last 10 or 15, which had never been done before by a fourth term film. It was huge.

S.M: What do you think it was about that film that made it so successful?

B.B: I make comedies and they’re personal. I’ve never really struggled with getting films into festivals because I don’t try to make arduous bulls**t. It’s personal, and also I’m not the most masculine man but I know lots of masculine men who do have feelings, and everybody has a shared experience of feelings and pain so there’s nothing that makes even the most masculine, awful guy not sensitive. A lot of my films are about paternal bonds or absent father figures, because my dad left and he was an utter c***. So, I’ve got a lot of things like that, that kind of resonate. 

My new one’s about something that genuinely happened, which was when my dad left when I was five and my mum decided to take me and my brother out of school and take us to Metroland, which is a theme park in Newcastle. My brother went on the dodgems but I was too little, so I had to go on the merry-go-round. It was amazing, and I was on a big white horse going round and round. Every time I’d come round I’d see my mum just stood there in floods and floods of tears, and then I’d go past her, and I could see my brother having the best time ever. That’s an analogy for my relationships with my siblings! I think if you say things that are deeply personal then they’re always going to do much better than things that aren’t you. When I started in term one and term two, I started trying to make stuff to look more “intelligent”, and then I realised that it wasn’t making me at all happy. So, by term four I made something ridiculous and by graduation I made a film called Sebastian which was a horror comedy which was also a bit nuts.

S.M: Was it always your plan to go back to Newcastle after graduation?

B.B: The day I handed my grad film in I went for a meeting to direct a pilot taster for Baby Cow, Steve Coogan and Henry Normal’s company. I got that, and I brought Yiannis (Manolopoulos, fellow LFS student and cinematographer) in, it was written by a friend of mine, Dan Mersh, who was also in Step Right Up, Plastic Toy Dinosaur, Sebastian and Mordechai. And that was really good because I got to meet Henry Normal, who was the managing director of the company. He’d written the Royle Family, Mrs Merton, he’d produced some of my fave TV shows, including the Mighty Boosh … He loved it. but Channel 4 didn’t pick it up. Then I moved back to Newcastle, in 2015, and broke my ankle running for a train! I was in a cast for over a year. 

Then I applied to the Jewish Film Fund for my film Mordechai, I’m not actually Jewish but the film’s subject is. It’s doing really well, it’s got into Palm Springs, BFI London Film Festival, and various others. It’s about these identical twins, one of which has left the community and one of whom has stayed at home. There’s an ultra-orthodox community in Gateshead and it’s quite insular and interesting. So, I developed a story about, what if one of them had left and then had to come home for a reason? The dad dies and the other brother comes home and he has to go and pick him up. They’ve got very different life choices – one brother’s dressed in black and the other turns up wearing tie-dyed hippy shit. He’s still Jewish but in his own way. Mordechai is really happy and charming and Daniel, who stayed at home, is a bit more down-trodden and miserable. Then Mordechai drops dead and Daniel makes the decision to body swap and becomes Mordechai and goes to his own funeral. It comes out the end quite positive but it’s also quite emotional!

S.M: You work a lot with producer Maria Caruana Galizia – is she someone you met through LFS?

B.B: No, she’s from Malta. She moved to Newcastle after living in Scotland for a while (I think), and there’s very few producers here. I met her at a networking event – she liked something I’d made, I liked something she’d made and we just decided to try and apply for stuff. She’s fu***ng awesome, super talented and incredibly hardworking. Also, she puts up with me…

S.M: Do you find that being based up in Newcastle has its pros and cons?

B.B: It really does. The benefits are that you can shoot anywhere for dead cheap but crewing’s impossible because every good member of crew’s doing Vera or The Dumping Ground. There’s swings and roundabouts. It’s beautiful, and has a better quality of life but there is definitely a massive divide. All the work’s in London, all the agents are there.

S.M: Do you manage to make a living out of the work you’re doing at the moment?

B.B: I’m a very cheap human being. It’s difficult when you start out because a lot of the stuff that you’re doing, like the shorts, aren’t going to make any money unless you start winning prize money. I’m at the stage now where it’s a little bit easier because I can apply for funding for development from the BFI etc. That’s what I’m applying for at the moment. I’m doing a project with Henry Normal, a documentary on him and his poetry. I’m also just finishing Metroland and I’m really, really happy with it, but I’ve got no idea how it’s going to go down ‘cause it’s a bit mental.

S.M: How did you get Mike Leigh to appear in the crowdfunding promo?

B.B: He pops up in it, and basically the whole joke is that the film’s kind of like Weekend at Bernie’s, but imagine Weekend at Bernie’s if it was directed by Mike Leigh. You see the door open and it’s Mike Leigh going “Ben, can you stop phoning and emailing me and if you give me another copy of Weekend at Bernie’s …” (laughs). 

I sent him an email going, “Hi Mike! Creative England are insisting that I do Crowdfunding and I really don’t wanna do it, so instead of making a video in which everybody’s positive, I want to make a video where everybody’s really negative about the experience.” He said yes without questioning it for a second… When I shot the video with Mike it was me, Yiannis and Eoin Maher, who did Filmmaking at LFS as well, and Mike who was just really hilarious. It was a lot of fun. Mike’s always been incredibly kind and supportive. He’s got a really good sense of humour. It’s the thing I love about his work to be honest.

S.M: Have you found it cathartic making such personal work based on your own life?

B.B: Unless you’re very good at what you do, this is just my advice, you can hide everything but what you do has to at some point be personal and resonate. Deconstruct any movie ever, like every movie Wes Anderson ever made is basically about his father walking out on his family, even though you don’t always realise it. It’s all about masculinity. It’s that thing that all your faults are your strongest features. I definitely find it therapeutic and I definitely think you deal with stuff. Spielberg says that it’s the only job where you get paid for therapy. I think that’s a great quote because it’s true in a way. Especially if you can’t afford therapy!

S.M: What do you think was the most important thing that LFS taught you?

B.B: The main revelation was that, whenever anybody goes into anything, doesn’t matter if it’s school, college or university, everybody comes in with a competitive nature that they’re going to be the best. Being competitive with yourself and wanting to make the best work is amazing, that’s the best way to be. But anybody else, whether they’re a director or whatever, should be your friends and your peer group, people that will help you. You basically have a support network with other filmmakers. That was really helpful, because it felt like you had a cheerleading squad and you could also do it for other people and you’d be really grateful. And that’s the industry – you’re not really in competition because nobody’s going to make the same film as you. You learn that very quickly at LFS because there’s people making such different work and you can really appreciate it. Then those people can come and work and collaborate on something you’re making, and you make something different and everybody learns from each other. Definitely the international vibe really helps as well. I was one of very few Brits and that was really nice, because obviously in Newcastle it’s mostly just people from there. In my term I had Yiannis from Greece, Pauline who was French, Rodrigo who was Mexican, Habib who’s American … it was really nice. I enjoyed it. Everybody’s great! Working with happy, positive people who feel comfortable in a nice environment is what makes the best work. And I think that’s what comes from having so many passionate people at LFS. It was a life-changing opportunity.

[dramyhsturgis]

Halloween Countdown 2017,  Day 18

Now it's list time! Here are my picks for the spooky podcasts you don't want to miss this Halloween.

In no particular order...

*  Welcome to Night Vale: It's TheNerdyBlogger's fault that I'm addicted to the Welcome to Night Vale podcast (and its wonderfully weird related books, as well). This is a twice-monthly podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news, announcements from the Sheriff's Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, an omnipotent Glow Cloud (All hail!), and cultural events. Think Lake Woebegone meets Stephen King. Just for kicks, I’m decorating this post with quotes from the podcast.

(Note: I also recommend checking out the other podcasts from Night Vale Presents, as well!)

* Astonishing Legends: This podcast's mission is to take a look at legendary, strange, and unusual events from history and interview people who’ve had close encounters with the unexplained. Hosts Scott and Forrest strive to bring you everything that’s entertaining about those stories and remind you that it’s okay to laugh at scary stories -- and, respectfully, even the people that tell them. That said, this is a serious and skeptical podcast. Put your headphones on, settle in for your commute, and get ready to experience a show like nothing you’ve ever heard before. I discovered this podcast while looking for more analyses of the Dyatlov Pass mystery, and I was hooked. My favorite series of episodes thus far focuses on the Somerton Man mystery. If you could have drinks with the Lone Gunmen, I'd expect the discussion would sound a bit like this podcast. (That's a compliment, if you were wondering.) Right now they’re covering the Bell Witch. (Too cool!) You remember the Bell Witch, right?

* The H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast: In each weekly podcast, Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer discuss a specific H.P. Lovecraft story – what it’s about, how it reads, why it may have been written and what other works of art it’s influenced. Since concluding Lovecraft’s stories, they’ve been covering other weird fiction that inspired the author, mostly those referenced in his essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature." They regularly have talented guest readers and contributing composers for their music sections. The majority of the Lovecraft episodes are free. Three of the four monthly episodes are now subscription-only, but they are well, well worth the modest cost. And October is for werewolves! * Saturday Frights: TheNerdyBlogger put this on my radar, and I'm grateful! Each week the co-hosts discussed a particular horror movie or horror-themed TV episode from the Retroist Vault for your listening enjoyment. Unfortunately, the show is no longer in production, but there are still 63 episodes in the archive that are well worth your time and guaranteed to put you in the Halloween mood. 

* Interference by Eric Luke: Another of my brilliant former graduate students, April, suggested this to me, and it's sublime. Don't miss this! The podiobook unfolds in twenty-four episodes, and then it's done. Described as "an experiment in audio horror" (oh yeah!), here's the tantalizing blurb: "SOMETHING wants in. To your head. Through this audiobook. Ethan, a digital sound engineer in Los Angeles, becomes aware that his life is unraveling when the audiobook he's listening to reveals his deepest, darkest secrets, escalating until the narrator addresses him directly, threatening to destroy him from within. Vivian, a single mother running an antique store in San Francisco, listens to her audiobook to distract herself from missing her young daughter, but is shaken when the narrative is interrupted by her daughter's voice, faintly calling for help. Ethan and Vivian are drawn together as they fight to solve a generation-spanning conspiracy that begins with a boy listening to the Orson Welles broadcast of War of the Worlds in 1938 and evolves through the latest innovations in digital technology..." I love how the individual weird tales link together into a spooky, intense, and deeply humane conclusion. * Rippercast: The Whitechapel Murders Podcast: This is a treat for those of you who are interested in the history of forensics, true crime, Victorian England/London, etc. A roundtable of author/academic presenters, co-hosts, and special guests discuss topics related to the Whitechapel Murders, Jack the Ripper, Victorian British history, true crime, and whatever else suits their fancy. Lately the podcast has been sharing the monthly scholarly talks recorded at the London meetings of the Whitechapel Society 1888 and at various international conferences focused on related themes, as well as the “10 Weeks in Whitechapel” series. If you want to hear the latest in research from those who literally wrote the books on their respective topics related to Jack the Ripper's times and context, you'll want to listen. * Kat & Curt's TV Re-View: This podcast began with brilliant bloggers Curtis Weyant and Katherine Sas introducing Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Doctor Who to each other, watching one episode of each per week, sharing fannish delight and critical analysis. Curt, a long-time Whedon devotee and scholar, introduced the show to Kat, and analytical Whovian Kat acquainted Curt with the Doctor. Now Angel and Battlestar Galactica have been added to the mix. Join Kat and Curt for a journey through time, space, and Sunnydale as they battle demons, aliens, and the inscrutable process of creating quality narrative television.

* Tales to Terrify: This weekly audio magazine is one of StarShipSofa's siblings in the District of Wonders. I'm terribly saddened to say that we lost our friend and comrade, author and host Larry Santoro ("the Vincent Price of podcasts!"). He is greatly missed. But the podcast continues to soldier (lurch? stagger? insert your scary verb here) on in his memory. It includes the best of contemporary horror fiction and nonfiction. It was my distinct honor to represent TTT last year at the Hugo Awards Ceremony, where it was a finalist for the Best Fancast Award. (In addition, have narrated three haunting stories for this podcast. Follow the links to hear my reading of “After the Ape” by Stephen Volk, my reading of “Jewels in the Dust” by Peter Crowther, and my reading of “Payback” by P.D. Cacek.)

* Lovecraft eZine Podcast: This is the podcast version of the wonderful and weekly live show produced by the incomparable Lovecraft eZine. Listen as stellar guests discuss cosmic horror, weird fiction, Lovecraftian horror, the Cthulhu Mythos, and related topics.

* Pseudopod: One of the oldest horror podcasts and still one of the very best, Pseudopod presents fine short horror in audio form weekly. Do not miss this podcast! * MonsterTalk: This is the science show about monsters — a free audio podcast that critically examines the science behind cryptozoological (and legendary) creatures, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and werewolves. Hosted by Blake Smith and Dr. Karen Stollznow, MonsterTalk interviews the scientists and investigators who shine a spotlight on the things that go bump in the night. The episode airing dates average out to mean a new show once a month, sometimes more. (Thanks to ankh_hpl for introducing me to this great show.) * Classic Tales: Edgar Allan Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, Wilkie Collins, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Shelley: what's not to love? This is a fantastic weekly podcast featuring B.J. Harrison's unabridged readings of great — and often haunting and Halloween-friendly — fiction. * Atlanta Radio Theatre Company: Founded in 1984, ARTC is a staple at venues such as Dragon*Con and has a standing program year-round, performing adaptations of works by authors such as H.P. Lovecraft and H.G. Wells live. ARTC podcasts its fantastic productions. * Skeptoid: This podcast shines the lights of logic and reason into the dark shadows. Each weekly episode focuses on a single phenomenon — an urban legend, a paranormal claim, etc. — that you may have heard of, and it explains the factual scientific reality. To put it another way, we the listeners are Fox Mulder, and Skeptoid kindly serves as our Dana Scully.

And here are some more recent lists for you!

* 13 Creepy Podcasts Just in Time for Halloween

* The Best Spooky Podcasts to Get You Ready for Halloween

* The Top 10 Scary Podcasts to Get You in a Spooky Mood

 Now it's your turn. What other spooky podcasts do you recommend?

[everydayinferno]

Supertopia Interview: Katherine Sommer, Director

SUPERTOPIA Written by Laura Hirschberg Everyday Inferno Theatre Company’s fifth annual FREE show in Central Park

SUMMIT ROCK, CENTRAL PARK August 11th-13th & August 18th-20th at 6:30pm Tickets: FREE (suggested donation of $10)

An original, heartfelt adventure for all ages, Supertopia centers around a group of remarkable, super-powered people in a new land where heroes aren't unique, and no one is in need of saving. Accountable to no one but themselves, the nine settlers of Supertopia struggle with the responsibility of creating a better world and the impossible, incredible choices that come with great power. Everyday Inferno's fifth annual free Central Park production imagines the lush, isolated beauty of Summit Rock as an uncharted wilderness, full of possibility. Join us once more for an astonishing summer evening, as we build new worlds in our own shared backyard.

What super-ability would you most want to have and least want to have? As an NYC resident, life is inextricably tied to our beloved MTA so, of course, my dream superpower is teleportation. Oh to arrive at my destination instantaneously without wondering whether a train will ever come and if, when it does, it will stop where it is meant to. Plus I could pretend I live inside the Harry Potter universe.

On the flip side, anything mind-reading-related freaks me out – too much unwanted knowledge seems like a recipe for disaster.

Strawberry, Banana, or Kiwi? Actual fruit: Strawberry Smoothie: Strawberry-Banana (I cheated. Sorry kiwis, you’re cool too.)

What current theatre artists are on your radar?  What excites you about their work? I am most excited by the people creating theatre in an inventive, different way – people who take big risks and aim to bring impossible moments to life. It’s thrilling to see that kind of work more and more, and at all different levels, particularly in the work of visionary directors like Rachel Chavkin.

Perhaps it’s because this project’s origins were in EITC’s 2016 developmental lab, but I’ve been thinking a lot, too, about all the other members of that lab – the projects they created there and the other work they’ve gone on to do. So I will say, in brief, that I am constantly surprised, inspired, and excited by the work of directors Todd Brian Backus, Courtney Laine Self, and Christine Zagrobelny, and playwrights Helen Banner, Eleanor Burgess, Matt Minnicino and, of course, Supertopia playwright Laura Hirschberg. 

And, in keeping with the theme that amazing artists have been working with EITC lately (I’m biased, I know, but what can I say), I’m also constantly and eagerly following the work of our 2017 season playwrights: Nora Sørena Casey, Francesca Pazniokas, and Reina Hardy, all of whom are brilliant and innovative and I can’t wait to see their next creations.

What do you wish the theatre had more of? More diverse voices - allow me to shout it from the rooftops, please! More women and people of color guiding productions and shaping the stories we tell. Also, more money – I wish there was more support (both general and financial) for the creation of new art from all levels of government and community.

Why is free theatre important?     Free theatre allows for larger, more diverse audiences, and who doesn’t want that? Everyone should have access to art regardless of their financial means, and free theatre exposes people to work they might not otherwise encounter or even seek out, in turn increasing the chances that we can alter audience’s perceptions or introduce people to new or different ideas and stories.

What do you hope the audience will be talking about after the show? I hope there’s some debate about the characters’ choices and motivations – they’re a complicated bunch and I’d love if people engaged with their decisions on a personal level. I also hope there’s some talk of personal responsibility and, at the risk of sounding clichéd, what comes with great power (you know what they say…). But mostly, I hope the audience has a blast joining us on another planet in this comic-book-inspired universe where nearly anything is possible – if people leave talking about how utterly cool it was to see how we managed to fly and teleport in the middle of Central Park, I will consider this a great success.

What else are you working on/are excited about at the moment? Well, if you’ll allow me to put on my EITC Producing Director cap for a moment, I will tell you of all the exciting things we have in store (now I want an actual “producing director” cap…). I’ve been working as the producer during the development of Regina Robbins’ Quicksand, a new adaptation of Nella Larsen’s Harlem Renaissance novel (check out the book, it’s fascinating!). We’re just about to finish up our year-long residency at the Access Theater, and a whole play has been brought into existence by a fantastic group of collaborators, so you should probably stay tuned for news of a future production (…hint hint…). 

First up, though, is our fall NYC premiere of Reina Hardy’s Glassheart for which I will also serve as producer. It’s a beautiful, magical play and I truly cannot wait to see it come to life (*ahem* save the date, October 19-29th, 2017 *ahem*).

How does “Supertopia” fit our season theme of Perception? This play is all about how people see themselves and their relationship to how others see them. What does it mean to be a superhero, whether or not the world sees you as one? Is it our choices who make us who we are, or are we defined by our abilities? Are other people struggling with the same things you are the only ones who can truly understand? And what would a “utopia” look like, anyway?

What aspect of working in the park are you most excited about? All the puppies! Plus it’s basically in my backyard, so the proximity to my bed is a real selling point.

Seriously, though, I’ve worked on a show in Central Park in some capacity for the past five years, and the possibilities available in that space still seem boundless. I’m extra excited to be working on a new, contemporary play in the park, and this particular environment really lends itself to creating an all-encompassing new world for both the play and its audience.

What is the biggest challenge this piece has posed to you? The physical elements of the piece – how will we make someone fly when we’re outside? How can someone teleport into a scene? What does telekinesis look like and how can we portray it in a visually interesting way? – have been a real challenge and joy to figure out. I’ve also been excited about the challenge of finding the tonal balance within the piece (and the genre for that matter). Much of the play is very grounded in our reality, and maintaining that feeling in concert with the heightened magic of the super-powered moments has been an invigorating challenge.

What's the difference between trying to represent superheroes/powers in theatre vs on film?  Well, there are the technical components of course: the lack of wires, special effects, post-production editing, and huge amounts of money (at least in the case of our current wave of superhero films). But I think the benefit of exploring superheroes and superpowers on stage comes with the intimacy inherent in theatre. Theatre creates a relationship with the audience and an agreement to all go on this adventure together, sharing a physical space. It allows us to accomplish things in new and exciting ways – to explore how the perception of a superpower makes it believable, or what sounds or visuals can signal that a super-powered moment is occurring. By adding challenges and eliminating the option to make things literal or realistic, we open up the door to explore superpowers from a more grounded, personal viewpoint – to see who these heroes are as people and to marvel at the extraordinary things they are able to do right in front of our eyes. The real-time, present nature of theatre – whatever is happening is happening in this moment only – makes these magical, supernatural moments even more powerful, and allows the audience to engage with them in a new way.

What makes superheroes an interesting topic for theatre?  The superhero genre lets us see our own real-world problems or wishes and elevates them to another level. Superheroes are full of possibility – with great abilities and endless adventures, they represent a world where magic is possible; where people are capable of using their inherent abilities to help others and make the world a better place, and choose to do so. Telling any story on stage through the lens of the superhero allows us to heighten the stakes and to explore our own everyday conflicts in an inherently more exciting and engaging way. Most everyone strives to be a superhero, and the theatre gives us a platform to explore why and what that means.

Katherine Sommer is a New York-based producer and director, a Skidmore College graduate, and the Producing Director of Everyday Inferno Theatre Company. With Everyday Inferno, Katherine’s directing credits include the world premiere of Punk as Fuck, By Sun and Candlelight, and Stella Starlight: Queen of Space and The Policy as a part of If on a Winter’s Night…. Katherine has produced The Turn of the Screw at the historic Morris-Jumel Mansion, A Map to Somewhere Else, Something Wicked and Heart of Oak (Hangover Encore selections in the 2014 and 2015 FRIGID New York festivals), and Briar Rose & the Thirteenth Fairy. Katherine has served on the board of Tomfoolery Theatre (NJ), and has directed multiple short plays at the Looking Glass Theater (NY).

[londontheatre]

In the 250th anniversary year of the invention of modern circus, the Roundhouse’s CircusFest 2018 focuses on the future of circus: daring and diverse, punky and poetic, subversive and socially aware.

From the spectacular to the intimate, the festival showcases the point where circus collides with theatre, dance, live art, film and even virtual reality.

Founded in 2009, CircusFest is London’s biennial international festival of contemporary circus taking place at the Roundhouse as well as selected partner venues around London. Circus has come a long way since Philip Astley created the first variety show and this year’s CircusFest shows how this art form is always innovating and evolving. With fifteen shows, two film projects and artists from three continents including companies from Sweden, USA, Finland and Palestine, the artists have blown circus apart and are putting it back together in new ways.

The Roundhouse believes in the power of creativity to transform lives and CircusFest explores the difference circus can make, from the pertinent work of the Palestinian Circus School, to the documentary Even When I Fall and its look at Circus Kathmandu, to the Street Circus Collective’s Throwdown, part of the Roundhouse’s activities with 11-25-year-olds.

Headlining this programme are two incredibly powerful productions: the world premiere of Relentless Unstoppable Human Machine from the acclaimed Pirates of the Carabina and the UK premiere of Groupe Bekkrell‘s punk show The Bekkrell Effect.

The Bekkrell Effect is an exhilarating visual feast combining the power of punk with risk and flare. Five performers hurtle around the stage, things fall apart, atoms decay and relationships break up – below the surface is chaos, yet with enough distance everything can be beautiful. Part riot-grrrl pop song, part circus spectacle The Bekkrell Effect is an energising experience.

Inspired by physicist Henri Becquerel’s discovery of radioactivity, French company Groupe Bekkrell have created an unstable universe of perpetual movement where matter decays and bonds disintegrate. Powered by the strength of its performers and driven with the momentum of a gig at the end of the world, it is at once comic and revealing.

Relentless Unstoppable Human Machine (RUHM) by Pirates of the Carabina is a world premiere of the brand new mechanically ingenious circus show from the makers of FLOWN. Delving bravely into the fantastical imaginations of two fated acrobats, RUHM is enjoyably anarchic, punchy and exhilarating, with an ingenious interconnected set and original live score.

Featuring vertical-swinging trapeze, never-ending ropes, a spinning carousel, high-wire and a very temperamental staircase, RUHM offers up a playful, humorous modernist parable about time, technology and the forces that drive us.

Highlights of this year’s CircusFest also include the European premiere of The Richochet Project’s Said and Done, 2015 Total Theatre Award winners Palestinian Circus School’s new show SARAB (Mirage), Ellie Dubois’ award-winning Edinburgh smash hit No Show, and the V&A Late highlighting the 250th anniversary of circus and the future of this ever-popular physical, visual art form.

Producers of CircusFest 2018, Molly Nicholson and Daniel Pitt comment, London was the birthplace of modern circus in 1768. Like London, circus is highly international and the Roundhouse presents brilliant artists from around the world regardless of language or borders. We’re looking to the future of circus, celebrating the strength, skill and potency of these incredible artists and joining their pursuit for development in the art form and change in the world.

The diverse and exciting full programme for CircusFest 2018 is as follows:

Relentless Unstoppable Human Machine (RUHM) by Pirates of the Carabina (3 – 15 April, Roundhouse Main Space) This is the world premiere of a brand-new mechanically-ingenious family-friendly circus show. Adventure into a world of mechanical chaos, where everything has a mind of its own and connections appear in unexpected ways. As contraptions, fixtures and fittings come to life, our heroes begin to question their place in it all.

The Bekkrell Effect by Groupe Bekkrell (19 – 22 April, Roundhouse Main Space) This UK premiere by French company Groupe Bekrell is an exciting chance to experience the richness of European circus. Combining innovative rigging and exceptional circus artists, The Bekkrell Effect swings between acrobatics and poetry, falling and flying, in a performance as energetic as a nuclear reaction.

Fram & Dunt by Collectif and then… (3 – 5 April, Roundhouse Sackler Space) A story about Fram aka daughter aka hair hung artist Francesca Hyde who asked Dunt aka dad aka 60-year-old Joe Hyde to run away with her to the circus, despite him having no previous circus experience. Her secret mission, to get him to quit his job and bring him to the stage that he has always dreamed of.

Breaking Point by Weibel Weibel Co. (6 – 8 April, Roundhouse Sackler Space) Mainly through slack rope, Alexander Weibel Weibel explores ideas of tension and how far things can be pushed before the inevitable happens.

Throwdown by Roundhouse Street Circus Collective (12 – 14 April, Roundhouse Sackler Space) Throwdown is an energetic-in-your-face-encounter, bursting with the individual style and personality of 20 young circus artists and hip-hop dancers. The Roundhouse Street Circus Collective brings together bold young circus artists and street dancers aged 16-25 with a drive to train, collaborate, produce and present their own work.

Even When I Fall by Sky Neal & Kate McLarnon (15 April, Roundhouse Sackler Space) Even When I Fall traces the journey of trafficking survivors over 6 years as they confront the families that sold them, seek acceptance within their own country and begin to build a future. They struggle against the odds and without education, but inadvertently these girls were left with a secret weapon by their captors – their breathtaking skills as circus artists. Nepal’s first and only circus company challenge the deep-seated stigma against trafficked women.

No Show by Ellie Dubois (18 – 22 April, Roundhouse Main Space) After taking Edinburgh Fringe 2017 by storm and winning a prestigious Herald Angel Award, No Show explores what you expect when you go to the circus. It joyously and heartbreakingly reveals what lies hidden beneath the showmanship. See behind the flawless smiles and perfect execution of the traditional circus performance to show the wobbles, the pain, and the real cost of aiming for perfection. A show for anyone who has tried, failed and failed better.

Zoetrope by Remy Archer (3 – 22 April, Roundhouse Main Space) While working as a filmmaker at social circuses in Palestine and Ethiopia, Remy Archer was inspired by the incredible talent, artistry and social impact of what he saw. Zoetrope is a 360 film installation that weaves together some of these stories into a visceral tapestry that plunges audiences into scenes that would otherwise be inaccessible.

Said and Done by The Ricochet Project (4 – 7 April, Jacksons Lane) Using high-flying contortions, live sonic installation, lo-fi technology and acrobatic distortions, Said and Done is a surrealist reality check set somewhere in the expressionist ice-desert of the not so distant future.

SARAB (Mirage) by Palestinian Circus Company (13 – 15 April 2018, Jacksons Lane) 2015 Total Theatre Award winners return with a new show about the unexpected, something that turns out to be only a mirage. Dragged to an uncertain end, with an unknown destiny, they finally arrive – but have they reach their goal? And what did they want?

Friday Late: Circus – Past, Present & Future (27 April, Victoria and Albert Museum) This is a collaboration between Roundhouse CircusFest – the home for contemporary circus – and the Victoria and Albert Museum – who hold a large number of objects that reveal the history of circus. With 2018 being Circus250, we must consider what’s next for this ever-popular physical, visual art form. Expect workshops that test your agility, rarely seen archives from the V&A’s collection, a series of live performances and newly commissioned inter-disciplinary acts.

Head by John-Paul Zaccarini (9 April, Jacksons Lane) For nine years, John-Paul delighted audiences worldwide with his show Throat. Now a Professor in Circus, he’s back and delighted to give them Head. As brainy as he is buff, a bimbo philosopher, he presents a middle-aged, one man circus lecture pretending to be a performance.

Hyena by Alula Cyr (12 – 13 April, The Albany) The first all-female Cyr troupe, Alula’s debut Hyena explodes onto the UK circus scene in a whirlwind of women, wheels, acrobatics, dance and song.

Knot by Nikki and JD (17 – 18 April, The Place) The Knot is the invisible string that connects two people. Using acrobatics, movement and storytelling to expose the hopes we hold for the ideal lover, Knot is the story of two hearts making sense of perfection.

Yablochkov Candle by Ilona Jantti & Aino Venna (19 – 21 April, Jacksons Lane) Enter the velvet world of cabaret in 1920s Vienna for an evening of poetic jazz and aerial performance, infused with the smoky tones of French chansons and old-school rock ‘n’ roll. This unique and minimalist cabaret-esque night will linger in your memory for months to come.

Natalie Inside Out by Natalie Reckert and Mark Morreau (8 April, Jacksons Lane) This playful collaboration between virtuoso hand balancer Natalie Reckert and digital artist Mark Morreau explores the inner workings and fragmentation of the acrobatic body through digital technology and video projection. Beautiful, didactic and highly skilled, Natalie Inside Out turns our conventional ideas of circus upside down and inside out. Literally.

CircusFest 2018 Performance Dates Tuesday 3rd – Friday 27th April 2018 Location Roundhouse, Chalk Farm Road, London NW1 8EH, http://ift.tt/wNAPNe

http://ift.tt/2ADscQa London Theatre 1

[renegadehymnal-blog]

Adventures in Digital #1

The Theory and Practice of Podcast Opera : part 1 (of 3)

A transcript of a Composer Commentary podcast, by Martin Ward, exploring the creation of the opera serial Road Memoir.

Road Memoir is a digital opera podcast serial, written by Martin Ward and produced by Renegade Hymnal. It was created, recorded and podcast in summer 2017. It features the voice of the soprano Billie Robson.

This Commentary assumes that the reader has listened to Road Memoir and it therefore contains some minor spoilers. To listen to the work go to http://www.martinwardmusic.com/road-memoir

Hello, my name is Martin Ward. I'm the creator, writer, composer and producer of Road Memoir. As a composer, my background is in writing for the stage – particularly opera, theatre and ballet - and especially in creating dramatic work. I come from a music college education and I worked for the Royal Opera House music department after leaving college, so the traditions of western classical music are well instilled in me but recently I've been increasingly wanting to explore how opera in particular might develop in the current and future digital age.

By digital I'm not just talking about the use of digital technology in staged productions - through video projection, lighting and sound - I'm more getting at exploring the ways that opera can exist and embed itself within digital media. Particularly the digital media we carry around with us, literally or virtually, in our phones and iPads and laptops.

There is obviously a role to be played by technology in promoting stage productions (via youtube, websites and social media) and more recently the screening and streaming of live or filmed productions is clearly bringing the artform to a wider audience and that's all fantastic but still what these methods are presenting is the traditional staged work. In contrast, what I'm looking to explore is the creation of work that uses this media and these devices as the platform - the digital stage - for which it is specifically created and on which it is "performed".

Increasingly we experience the world through our phones - news, art, culture all come to find us. You receive a notification, you tap on that and away you go. The immediacy of that is exciting and stealthily addictive. So I wondered what it would be like to attempt to bring that same immediacy to a dramatic musical story, to have the work come to the audience rather than making the audience go and find it. The prospect of being able to embed a work within or alongside the normal everyday interactions of the audience's digital life, to have some control over when that "performance" moment happens, and to have that as a storytelling tool, is all quite enticing too.

For this piece, which is really a first stage on that journey, I chose what is intentionally quite an easy step to begin with, by using podcasting as the medium for the "performance" of the work. I say "easy step" just because the podcasting platform is well established and the process of uploading episodes; and for those episodes to then automatically migrate into iTunes and other podcast providers; and to gain a global reach therefore, is all quick, painless and pretty simple. Given the creative challenges I was imagining, ease of delivery was an important factor.

I decided early on that I wanted to make an episodic piece – what I started with was an idea for a work that was really more like a song cycle than an opera. The inspiration I was taking was from works like Schubert's Winterreise, where a narrative is told by a single character in the first person and the songs are about moments in a journey, extremely intimate glimpses of personal experience or emotion or memory that end up saying something profound about the world they are set in.

I had also been wanting to write a piece about refugees for some time. By way of research, I'd read a lot of refugee stories and testimonies online and thought that I'd try to concentrate on what was common to the refugee experience, avoiding the bigger pictures of the political causes and the wider humanitarian ramifications of refugee crises, stripping away geographical or historical setting and any backstory that wasn't completely personal to the single character that I would focus on. So, by taking this route in, the piece is largely about how a person is not in control of their own fate, things happen that are outside of their control and they react, often without the luxury of understanding the context or the bigger picture and often in the only way they can, they literally have no choice other than "run and live, or stay and die" and those survival choices lead them in certain directions and they have to then live with where they end up. So in this piece I wanted to create a character and then put those kinds of life or death moments in her path and let her snap decisions in those moments lead her journey, whilst I concentrated on showing how it must feel to constantly be that helpless and afraid and threatened.

An intriguing factor in writing a piece that will likely be experienced through a phone, probably on headphones, is the intimate one-to-one nature of that communication, that connection, and I decided pretty early on that that needed to be embraced by the work. That this needed to be a story and an approach which tied in with that intimacy and used it to it's advantage. Hence the idea that every voice you hear in the opera, be it sung or spoken, is being sung or spoken into a phone. I hoped that that might draw in the listener, make them feel more involved in the drama.

It's a decision like that that marks a kind of break through in the development of a work because immediately other things fall into place. So, straight away I knew that the woman's voice had to be recorded up close in a dry space and then had to be mixed without reverb (to sound as it would on a phone recording made outside) and I also had to create the sounds that phones pick up other than your voice. So there's the natural ambiance of the surroundings – be it a city, or a wood, or on a beach – as well as more specific sounds of other people or vehicles or of movements like footsteps, the sound of the wind on the microphone even, all of that went into making it sound authentically like a phone and also into creating a sense of the character's surroundings. A lot of this is quite subliminal because the listeners ear instinctively homes in on the words and obviously there's the music in the mix as well but I really came to believe in the power of that subliminal sound - the ear takes it all in and interprets it, even if it doesn't flag it up to the conscious mind. For instance, a dry-recorded voice accompanied by just a natural ambient recording of wind blowing through trees can have a significant emotional impact. The changes in ambiance also really helped to chart the journey from one episode to the next and I constantly used them to give a sense of place before using any words to fill in detail.

On a practical level, I tried to record as much of the sound myself over the course of the creation of the opera. My Olympus LS-5 Recorder has been a constant companion on dog walks for the last few months. A lot of the woodland ambiance and sounds – footsteps for instance – are recorded in a wood near my home in Bedfordshire. I needed to EQ out the drone of the M1 motorway which is about 5 miles away and record between passing planes but that's pretty much unavoidable wherever you go in the UK. For the beach sounds I spent an afternoon at Dunwich in Suffolk. I thought it would be quiet on a weekday but it ended up being a really sunny September afternoon with lots of retired people walking their dogs – so not quite the desolate coastline I was after but, if you're patient in the recording and prepared to work in editing the sound files in the studio, you can make it work.

So all of the initial development and thought and planning was happening early this year and the creative work didn't really begin until after I spoke to Bill Bankes-Jones at the start of May and he offered to present the piece as part of the Tete a Tete Opera Festival in July and August. This was important not least because, as a podcast opera, there wasn't an audience in existence. Unlike staged work where an established opera audience simply follows the companies and theatres which produce the work they like, monitoring the websites and the brochures, etc. I was aware that no-one would be looking for this, that podcast opera didn't exist as a thing and so, partnering with a new opera festival would hopefully flag up the piece to the kind of audience who are open not just to opera (and that's already a small enough proportion of the population) but also to contemporary opera that's exploring new ground and new methods and unconventional stories.

Figuring out my approach and the details of the story, creating the characters, writing the libretto, all that took some time, not least because I was kind of inventing the form of it as I went along. And from an initial idea of having short episodes (two minutes maximum) daily for two weeks it was suggested that it would work better as weekly episodes. This made sense with the established podcasting routines and I hoped to attract seasoned podcast listeners – something that I don't think really happened actually – and it also felt like it would buy me a bit more time as the series would then be spread over 12 weeks and so I agreed on that change and took a step back to see how that might alter the possibilities for the piece. I decided (and this was a decision that I almost came to regret) that with weekly instead of daily episodes I'd have to increase the length of each (to five to six minutes), to keep the audience engaged, and that I should include a second voice...

This second voice was the spoken text role of The Investigator, which had come initially from an idea that if the opera mixed sound and music maybe it should also mix sung and spoken, to create a fuller sonic picture. I'm also a fan of parallel stories in films and books and it occurred to me that having someone investigate the woman's experiences at the same time as we hear her living them, might be interesting, and might make it possible to bring more insight and context to her story whilst also underlining how little she is really aware of what's going on around her during her journey. This seemed to be an addition which would add real depth to the piece.

In the next blog I'll talk about the writing and composition of Road Memoir and some of the conclusions that I've taken from the process.

[artatak-texts]

Women dancers in India and UK at a glance

An article by Katerina Valdivia Bruch for Culture360.asef.org

Katerina Valdivia Bruch was in India as a bangaloREsident at Natya & STEM Dance Kampni. During her stay in Bangalore, she was able to attend the BENCH India, a conference on gender inequalities in the performing arts, held on 7 February 2017 at Alliance Française de Bangalore, as part of the Attakalari India Biennial. What follows is a short survey on the current situation of women dancers in India and UK, the challenges they face in their practice and the projects and/or initiatives they are involved in.

Tamsin Fitzgerald

How did you start with The BENCH? What moved you to create this initiative?

The BENCH as an idea started in 2013. There were rumblings in the UK dance sector around the absence of female voices on both the stage and in leadership and the negative outcome of this for both audiences and young artists. I decided that I would try to change things for the better. In 2015 The BENCH was launched in the UK. We work with artists, venues and the wider sector to encourage change.

The BENCH INDIA launched in 2016 after discussions with Indian artists and organisations. So far it has been an incredible journey, shifting perspectives and historical ways of working is always going to be a challenge, but that’s what makes it unique and why it’s needed.

Biography

Tamsin Fitzgerald founded 2Faced Dance Company in 1999 and has choreographed several major works for the company, which have all toured across the UK and internationally. In 2009, she received the Rayne Fellowship for Choreography and worked with Australian Dance Theatre and The Ballet Boyz. In 2013, she was awarded the prestigious Jerwood Choreographic Research Prize.

Tamsin is also founder of The BENCH, a bespoke programme for female choreographers. Created in 2015 as a direct response to the gender crisis within the contemporary dance industry, the The BENCH aims to challenge the sector and give mid-career artists a voice and platform for their work. In 2016 The BENCH INDIA was launched.

2Faced Dance http://www.2faceddance.co.uk/

The BENCH INDIA http://www.the-bench.org/the-bench-india/

Photo: Tamsin Fitzgerald | © Luke Evans

Madhu Nataraj

How is it to run your own dance school and company at the same time?

We have a training centre, a performing unit and an outreach & archiving cell, that nurture and support each another. In 1995, when I birthed STEM Dance Kampni – Bangalore’s first Indian contemporary dance company –, I had to literally ‘create’ dancers. The classical trained dancers were initially hesitant to try out this ‘strange’ movement. So, simultaneous to choreographing new works, there was a strong training to make sure we had dancers ready to perform.

Today, I also head Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography, one of India’s first dance institutes initiated in 1964 by Dr. Maya Rao. From training, curating, marketing, choreographing, to administrative realities I have balanced it all from the very beginning. I honestly don’t know other way of functioning!

Can you tell us about some challenges and achievements in the past years?

I think our most important strength is sustainability. Everyone wants to pioneer a new movement, but what about sustaining it? That’s a constant challenge. The very fact that we have managed to sustain a 53 year old institution and a 22 year old new age performing unit through recessions, lack of funding, being ostracised, attrition and the like is an achievement.

Biography

Madhu Nataraj is a dancer and choreographer, and director of Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography (NIKC) and STEM Dance Kampni. A performer, choreographer, graduated in commerce and journalism, Madhu was trained in the classical form of Kathak by her mother Dr. Maya Rao, as well as Chitra Venugopal. Apart from learning contemporary dance in New York, she has also been trained in Indian martial arts, folk dances and yoga.

Madhu was chosen as one among India’s 50 Young Achievers by ‘India Today’, as well as received the ‘Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar’ from the Central Sangeet Natak Academi and the Mohan Khokar Award for excellence in dance. Madhu is also a panelist at important design, cultural and academic institutions and is often invited to perform, design and choreograph productions for a number of local and international cultural institutions.

Natya Institute of Kathak & Choreography www.natyamaya.in

STEM Dance Kampni www.stemdancekampni.in

Photo: Madhu Nataraj | © Ramy Reddy

Ranjana Dave

How is Dance Dialogues supporting performing arts?

During The BENCH conference, I referred to the fact that in India it is not about a lack of opportunities for women only, but a lack of opportunities in general. As part of Dance Dialogues, our concerns are about accessing the few opportunities available and creating new avenues.

Dance Dialogues was formed in response to a scattered dance ecology in Mumbai, where artists were unable to connect with each other, find moments to critically engage about their practice and gain new skills. Through a regular monthly programme of workshops, screenings, talks and community discussions, we generate conversations, connect artists to each other and establish peer support networks. During our five years of operation, the Mumbai dance scene has changed. Some dancers have benefited from our programmes, and new initiatives have emerged, bringing the dance community closer.

Do you have any project that supports women dancers? If yes, can you name some examples?

Our activities are not targeted to any gender, because a gender bias in availing of opportunities was not the big concern we were tackling. As I mentioned before, the concern was the lack of opportunities. But, I can say that we have worked largely with female artists in all our projects. Apart from this, our organisation is completely run by female artists since its inception in 2011. That, I believe, filters also whatever we do.

Biography

Ranjana Dave is a dancer and writer based in Delhi. She works with Gati Dance Forum as Director of Programmes and contributes to their curatorial and educational initiatives. She is the co-founder of Dance Dialogues, an initiative that works with dance makers and dance lovers, helping them to connect with provocative and diverse ideas, individuals and institutions.

Dance Dialogues http://dancedialogues.org/

Gati Dance Forum http://gatidance.com/

Photo: Ranjana Dave | © Akshiti Roychowdhury

Seeta Patel

As an independent dancer living in London, who dances Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance, could you tell us more about your work, both in UK and India?

I have been lucky to have worked with many talented artists from a variety of disciplines and I am privileged to be in a country that has government funded arts, which has allowed me to have been able to create and be a part of much great work over the years. Since becoming a full time professional artist in 2003 I have grown my experience by being involved in a number of different projects, which includes theatre and film, as well as teaching, that helps me keep my Bharatanatyam work fresh by having a wider experience alongside my classical training practice. Connecting with my teachers in Chennai is also a vital part of my practice as a grounding experience by which I continue to develop my growth as a classical artist.

I have also produced a short film that takes a humorous look at how identity can so easily become a fickle commodity in the dance world. I am fascinated by the perceptions people in the UK have of Bharatanatyam, how it is spoken about, the tokenism of culture, how within the South Asian sector the idea of the exotic is promoted, and am constantly trying to challenge how people perceive me as a Classical Bharatanatyam dancer born and raised in the UK. My current challenge is to try and keep my focus on my work, without succumbing to external pressures and perceptions that narrow the scope of who and what I can be.

Biography Born in London, Seeta Patel began training under the guidance of Kiran Ratna in 1990 and has since worked with a range of Bharatanatyam and contemporary dance professionals. She furthered her studies in Bharatanatyam under the guidance of Mavin Khoo, Padma Shri Adyar K Lakshman, Meena Raman and Pushkala Gopal.

She has also worked with Professor C.V. Chandrashekar and Liz Lea. Seeta has toured with DV8 Physical Theatre, Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company, David Hughes Dance Company and Mavin Khoo Dance, amongst others. Over the past 12 years, she has received numerous awards and bursaries for her creative and professional development. Dance UK has chosen Seeta to be a part of the 2015 Mentoring Programme as a future leader within the arts.

Seeta Patel – Homepage www.seetapatel.co.uk

Photo: Seeta Patel | © Stephen Berkeley-White

Author Katerina Valdivia Bruch is a Berlin-based independent arts writer, curator, dancer and choreographer, who researches on dance and other fields of art. As a dancer and choreographer, she regularly collaborates with different artists, such as experimental musicians and visual artists, focussing on interdisciplinary work. Her dance projects have taken her to different countries, where she has developed her practice as a choreographer and dancer, but also as a teacher. She has performed, created choreographies, given lessons and workshops in Germany, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Spain and Peru. www.artatak.net

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Hyperallergic: Hybrid Dance Works That Get Intimate with the Audience

From Fabian Barba and Esteban Donoso’s slug’s garden/cultivo de babosas (© Koen Broos; all images courtesy of KDFA)

BRUSSELS — Founded in 1994, Kunstenfestivaldesarts (KDFA) is one of Europe’s leading art events. Over three weeks each May, it features close to 40 works, many of them world premieres. Though the program includes film and visual art, it’s primarily a festival of performance, specifically dance. This should be no surprise: While Belgium turns out plenty of painters, sculptors, fashion designers, and architects, the country (particularly the Flemish side) is known at least as well for choreographers as it is for chocolate and beer.

KDFA has always been a launching pad for contemporary choreographers and significant dance works. In recent years, the festival seems to be making an effort to stretch its own boundaries, offering a handful of exhibitions and interventions along with the standard dance fare. And within the dance program, more hybrid works are also being offered: projects that stand at the boundaries of dance, with one foot resting in installation or relational performance. Three such pieces this year came from Mette Edvardsen, Begüm Erciyas and Matthias Meppelink, and Fabián Barba and Esteban Donoso.

From Mette Edvardsen, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (© Titanne Bregentzer)

Norwegian artist Mette Edvardsen is most often referred to as a choreographer, but many of her works, particularly in the last decade, haven’t involved much dancing. Her piece for this year’s KDFA, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine, was inspired by Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, in which a group of people each memorize the contents of a book that is going to be burned. Time has 24 performers, each of whom has committed an entire book to memory.

When you arrive at the performance, you’re greeted by a “librarian” who provides a list of available “books” (the performers are themselves referred to as “books” in the context of the work). Once you’ve made your selection, the performer is invited over to meet you. Together, you chose a spot in the room to sit, and they recite a specific section of the book. The texts on offer are in English, French, Dutch, German, Spanish, and a host of other languages, and include works as diverse as Goethe’s Faust, Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick.

From Mette Edvardsen, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (© Titanne Bregentzer)

The show has been presented close to 40 times since 2010, primarily at dance festivals. For the 2017 incarnation, the performers have an added task: Over the course of each day of the performance, in between reciting the books to audience members, they are also going through a process of transcribing the memorized books to print by hand, producing new versions of existing works, rewritten through a process of learning and forgetting, incorporating all the mistakes and transformations that occur along the way into the final products.

From Mette Edvardsen, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (© Titanne Bregentzer)

After perusing the available catalogue, I settle on J. G. Ballard’s Crash, the 1973 novel about car-crash fetishists adapted for the screen in 1996 by David Cronenberg. I’m greeted by an amiable bespectacled British guy in his mid-30s. He shakes my hand and introduces himself (“Hi. My name’s Crash.”) We retire to one of the benches on the periphery of the room. He recites roughly 30 minutes of the book and then stops, announcing that we’ve reached the end of Chapter One.

He doesn’t immediately dismiss me; instead, I hang out to ask him some questions. He’s been working on the project for a few years and specifically selected this book (each performer gets their choice from the available texts). That choice, he says, is important. As you begin the memorization process, the book starts to live inside you. He’ll find passages floating through his head in odd moments or catch himself reciting them under his breath. The even end up wafting through his dreams — a scary thought, considering how violent Crash is.

From Mette Edvardsen, Time has fallen asleep in the afternoon sunshine (© Titanne Bregentzer)

The conversation gradually veers into our own lives: our taste in art, our jobs (he’s the financial manager of a theater company in Birmingham), and our romantic entanglements. Like many relational works, the performance uses a specific format as a way to produce an open interaction. This could also be the argument for considering it to still have one foot in the dance field: Edvardsen has choreographed a series of interactions between performers and strangers by providing a score that creates intimacy between them. This in turn produces a space for a conversation between two people that would probably never have happened otherwise.

Like Edvardsen, Turkish artist Begüm Erciyas is sometimes referred to as a choreographer, though her oeuvre has nearly always been more expansive. Her current KDFA offering, Voicing Pieces, is also a performance for a single audience member. Unlike Edvardsen’s show, the work has no additional performers. The audience member simultaneously creates and experiences the performance themselves.

The project began more than three years ago, with the idea of exploring intimacy in public. Erciyas and her collaborator, German sound artist and DJ Matthias Meppelink, first came up with the concept of creating a private space for a performance experience on the street. The result was a theatre so small it only had room for the head of a single audience member — literally a kind of tent. Fixated on the spatial concept, they began tossing around ideas for what could happen in such an environment. The answer was ultimately that each audience member would create the performance using their own voice.

From Begüm Erciyas’s Voicing Pieces (© Begüm Erciyas)

The resulting work places the viewer into a kind of bubble sculpture on stilts, where they are invited to read a text into a microphone. As they read, their voice is captured and played back to them with a variety of live manipulations applied, scattering and swirling it like light refracted from a mirror ball. The explosion of auto-tune in pop music means that many of the voices we hear on a daily basis are somewhat if not highly modulated — a fact not lost on the creators of this piece. The project works with the subject’s voice by modifying it in such a way that it becomes increasingly unrecognizable.

Voicing Piece confronts us with the sound of our own voice, something most people hate to hear. It also asks important questions about authorship. Co-implicated in the production of the work along with the two makers, we share in both its result and the responsibility for creation. The experience provides an opportunity for meditation on artistic judgement, collaborative creation, and the power of speech, ultimately offering a deeply intimate piece of performance, in the most literal sense.

Ecuador-born, Brussels-based duo Fabián Barba and Esteban Donoso trace their creative trajectories through dance and have a history of more conventional dance works. Their collaboration, slugs’ garden/cultivo de babosas, does involve performers moving in space, but the experience they offer the audience bears little relation to what we might expect of conventional choreography.

Upon arrival, you’re led into a ramshackle-looking structure whose shape hints at a circus tent. Inside, you’re greeted with a floor piled with fabrics in all different colors and textures, mingled with sheets of transparent plastic and numerous large pillows. You’re invited to sit within the mess.

Among the audience members are a group of eight performers, laying with their eyes closed, slithering very slowly through the heaps of material, their movement suggestive of slugs. As you continue to sit, the performers may gradually move towards you, making slight contact or perhaps crawling over your legs. They move, for the most part, silently. However, when one of their bodies crosses some of the plastic that’s mixed in with the fabric, it causes different sorts of crackling, translating their movement into sound.

From Fabián Barba and Esteban Donoso’s slug’s garden/cultivo de babosas (© Koen Broos)

It’s a challenging piece to critique, because of both its simplicity and its hybrid nature. Could this work properly be considered dance? Is it relational performance? Is it a form of theatre? Is it bullshit? I encountered plenty of audience members after the fact who considered it a lazy, overly simplistic excuse for people to roll around on the floor and maybe touch a stranger. But I think the core issue the creators are hitting on — exploring the sensation of touch within an interactive performance model — may be something we see more of soon.

From Fabián Barba and Esteban Donoso’s slug’s garden/cultivo de babosas (© Koen Broos)

Around 10 years ago, the first inklings of what might be called “post-internet performance” — works of dance, theater, and performance art that sought to address and perhaps mend the growing distraction and divide that digital technologies and handheld devices were introducing — began to appear. Since then, artists have started to incorporate elements of both computing and networking, such as surfing the web or exploring their own hard drive while an image of their screen is projected for an audience. We’ve also seen an opposing approach of creating performances that address how technologies designed to bring us closer (Facebook, instant messaging, etc.) actually produce distance — interactive works that ask us to rethink what it means to be face-to-face with a person during a cultural moment when 95 percent of our interactions are mediated by technology.

It may be that the next step in the evolution of this specific line of inquiry is about sensation — physical, auditory, or tactile — as we’re beginning to see with artists like Christian Bakalov, who creates guided tracks where audience members are manipulated by the performers and experience a strange combination of visual and auditory inputs, and Peter De Cupere, who creates scent installations.

KFDA’s shift from being primarily a festival of dance to one featuring hybrid works may be partially a matter of the curatorial team’s own interests, but it also shows us something about where performance is going. As the concept of “genre” becomes more unreliable and less interesting to creators, we can expect more artists to nestle themselves in between different forms — not as an act of rebellion or critique, but simply because that’s the way we need to be confronted by art in the world today.

Kunstenfestivaldesarts continues at various locations in Brussels through May 27.

The post Hybrid Dance Works That Get Intimate with the Audience appeared first on Hyperallergic.

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